Andre Arendse promises tough love as SuperSport United woes continue

Matsatsantsa dropped crucial points by losing 1-0 to their Soweto rivals at the Peter Mokaba Stadium with two matches to go.

On the night SuperSport were thrown a lifeline after the ruling in the case with Golden Arrows over the abandoned match went their way, Arendse watched on as his charges failed to capitalise against Pirates.

He has promised to give the players tough love.

"That's gonna be my job to find a balance with calling it like it is, pointing out the mistakes and keeping them going. Keeping all the players in the positive frame of mind and I think that’s an easy job because it's what I do, it's what I believe I'm good at and it's what rubs off in the players as long as we keep them in the positive frame of mind, I know we've got it in our locker to score goals,” Arendse said.

“I know we've got it, like we proved for 75, 76 minutes of the game that we can keep opposition strikers away. So, we've gotta find that balance in the next game."

READ: Steve Barker gears up for high stakes final day derby

Arendse remains upbeat knowing that another good performance that leads to a victory this time helps SuperSport retain their topflight status.

"I'm not happy that we lost but I'm not disappointed in the performance and I think those are two different things. You know again, they give their all out there. There's such a thing as luck in the game, there really is and we don't have it at the moment, we don't have it,” he added.

“On another night, the header hits the post and goes in, in to the net. On this time, it hits the post and comes out, that's the kind of small margins I'm talking about from a luck perspective.

“We just don't have it in the moment so we're gonna have to do it the hard way, there's no doubt about that. We've got the next one coming, we'll prepare for that and we'll keep the team going.

“Yes, it's a little bit deflating to come off a result like this. I thought we pushed them so far in the game, defensively we looked very, very solid. We kept the shape nicely, one lapse in concentration and we're giving teams goals again.

“So, we've gotta fix that and we've got to do it quickly because we're running out of games and we don't have time but like I said in my interview, we're going to do this. There is no doubt in my mind that these group of players is going to see this over the line and I look forward to seeing that."