Pirates have not won in four league games and only scored one goal in that time, and Chippa United are now above them on the league table after they beat the Buccaneers 2-0 on Wednesday night.
“We showed way too many defensive frailties tonight,” a beleaguered Tinkler told SuperSport.
“We warned the players that Molangoane is very quick, you can’t give him time, you can’t give him space but he was getting into pockets, receiving, turning, running at us and we were allowing that to happen.
“We warned them again at half time but it happened exactly the same in the second half. Very disappointing defending.”
Reflecting on missed chances, Tinker admitted there were not many created but remembered one.
“Myeni had a great chance win the first half to make it 1-1 and unfortunately he put it past the post … that’s goin to happen, what you’ve got to do is lift yourself and move on and look to create more chances and find the back of the net.
“But at the moment we’re not creating enough, and we’re not getting in the right positions to score goals, and that’s something we have to rectify.”
Tinkler admits his side are taking the long route to securing a top-eight finish.
“It’s still all dependent on us, we’re not having to rely on anybody else but ourselves,” he added. “That’s the only positive that you can really take from it but obviously we would have preferred to wrap it up today, but we didn’t.”