Cape Town City head coach Eric Tinkler has divided the Betway Premiership into two stating that big-three Mamelodi Sundowns, Kaizer Chiefs, and Orlando Pirates have their own league.
City has had a lukewarm start in the Betway Premiership after playing three matches, winning one against SuperSport United, drawing one against Royal AM away from home, and losing to their biggest rivals Stellenbosch FC.
This coming Sunday afternoon they will welcome Magesi FC at Athlone Stadium, and Tinkler sees this game as the most important match, if they are to compete in the league, stating that City cannot be named in the same breath with the likes of Chiefs, Pirates and Sundowns.
When he was asked by iDiski Times if he sees this season as a competitive one with Pirates, Chiefs and Sundowns all having started on a high note, he did insist City’s focus must be to get as many points as possible from the rest in the league.
“The expectation is those clubs should be [at the top]. Let’s be brutally honest with ourselves, the wage bills at those clubs are massive, so they bring in a lot of quality, the expectation is for them to be where they find themselves. The rest of us like I said we there to compete because we believe we can compete against them,” Tinkler told iDiski Times.
“I think we’ve assembled a good enough squad for us to compete at that level and sometimes I think we possibly punched above our weight that we managed to finish second, third, fourth, and fifth during my time here, so that expectations from us don’t change.
“Like I said to the players in those seasons that we finished second, third, fourth and fifth it wasn’t because we beat Pirates, Chiefs and Sundowns. In fact, the reason that we don’t even compete even higher than that is we lost against Magesi, Polokwane City and Royal AM and those games are more important to collecting maximum points.
“For me, yes we have Sundowns on Wednesday but I would rather take three points on Sunday, I think that’s important, that’s literally what I have explained to the players.
“Your next five games, take out Sundowns and you go collect 12 points from the other teams, whatever you’re getting against Sundowns is a bonus plus it means you are competing with them because that’s what they do.”