Cape Town Spurs geared for bruising promotion battle again

The Mother City outfit missed out on automatically stepping up to the DStv Premiership on the final day of the 2022/23 Motsepe Foundation Championship season when they needed a win against AmaTuks, but played to a draw instead. 

Now in the mini-league of the PSL play-offs, their victory away to Casric Stars has set the tone for Bartlett’s charges. 

"I think the most difficult part was for us to pick ourselves up again, after the disappointment of not getting automatic promotion, you've got to go again with a second opportunity in the play-offs," said Bartlett.

"It was a hectic two weeks for us [to prepare], obviously you've got to get rid of that disappointment and feeling in your stomach, but I think the players prepared well, we did well as a club [against Casric], and this is the type of commitment and willingness to win that we'll need for every game going forward.

"We knew it was going to be tough against Casric, they're a very direct team and always putting pressure on you, but we dealth with that and once we started playing our own game, we actually benefited."

On Saturday, they host Maritzburg United – a side fresh from also beating Casric Stars 2-0 on Wednesday at Harry Gwala Stadium, and Bartlett wants to see Spurs play to their strengths.

"I think it's about going back to the basics. I said to the players, what got us into this position in the first place was clean sheets and converting chances, and when we score first we always have a 99 percent chance of winning games," he added.

"I think that's the difference [compared to] when we have to chase the game, sometimes it becomes a little bit panicky, and we tend to just play long-ball.

"But I think today we proved that we can keep the ball on the ground and utilise the strengths of the players we have, we're not a direct-football type of team, we've got players that want to play from the midfield, building up and getting into the final third.

"I think that's the way we have to go [in the play-offs], and also recognise when there's risk, get the ball forward and then apply pressure on the opponents."