Orlando Pirates assistant coach Sergio Almenara admitted that his side were left disappointed by the manner of their Soweto derby defeat to Kaizer Chiefs courtesy of a Olisa Ndah own goal.
"It's painful for the fans and we understand that," Almenara said post-match.
"it's painful for the players and for us.
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"The only thing that we can do is to prepare well in the week to be ready to face Swallows."We are taking it week by week, we are trying to prepare for the next game and that’s all.
"We think the first half was for Chiefs, we were struggling defensively and couldn't find how to neutralise the way they were attacking us, and offensively we couldn't find the spaces to find advantages."
Almenara admitted that the dismissal of captain Innocent Maela affected the game that forced the introduction of an additional defender.
"At halftime we fixed those things and in our opinion the start of the second half was good for us. We felt better and that we could take the game.
"Unfortunately the red card came and it forced us to make changes so we could get some advantage for the low block and some counterattacking with fast players who are able to find spaces behind the backline.
"We needed to readjust because of the red card of 'Inno', we needed one centre-back and then we needed some fresh legs because we were going to spend a lot of time in the low block."
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