Miguel Cardoso defends Mamelodi Sundowns business end approach

The Portuguese mentor felt the display was hard labour from his charges, who claimed all three points to stretch the lead at the top of the Betway Premiership table to 18 points over Orlando Pirates, who were held by Stellenbosch FC.

While the performance wasn’t particularly pleasing, Cardoso was pleased that they managed to break down an ultra-defensive Usuthu outfit at Lucas Moripe Stadium. 

"Two different halves of the match, but in general an interesting match, not always well played, and it has to do with the moments that are arriving in the championship [race] a little bit," said Cardoso.

"We are into the last third of the championship, so it's normal that teams fight for the points in a very convicting way, and I think we didn't enter the game in the best way.

"Eventually we did not expect that AmaZulu could close the spaces so well with a 5-4-1 [formation] and a very low block, protecting all the width of the pitch.

"We needed something different to what we showed in the first half – mostly in the first 30 minutes, the game was quite slow and it was difficult to find the right spaces to unlock their organisation.

"Then it was a matter of communication with the players at half-time, which was to try and take them out of their responsibilities and give them the proper energy because football should be played with joy."

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