Mamelodi Sundowns co-coach Manqoba Mngqithi says they can't write off the threat Orlando Pirates poses ahead of their DStv Premiership clash at Orlando Stadium on Saturday.
Both sides have looked in good form of late with Sundowns winning three of their last four league games, topping of the table with 10 points.
Pirates have won their last two games and are yet to lose in the league after four matches played and are two points back on eight.
In an interview with TimesLive, Downs co-coach Mngqithi said despite their great early season form, against Pirates there was always respect and no room for arrogance.
“The most important thing when it comes to matches like this is to always have a fair share of humility and respect,” said Mngqithi.
“No room for arrogance. We may have done well in the last few matches but we are facing a very good team that is on form. They have just played a very good game against Chippa United in the league where they showed their quality.
“We will give the match the respect it requires, but at the same time, we will do our work by profiling them properly. We will do our analysis to see which areas we can capitalise on, and which areas they are strong in to make sure that we deal with that.
“We know that Pirates have always been one of the strongest teams in transition in the league, but that can also be a big weakness. For us, it is important to have proper balance in dealing with their transition with good counter-pressing and also some good defence.”
Mngqithi said the plan was to get as many points as possible from games and if they could pick up points against Pirates then he would be happy.
“What we have emphasised as the technical team, other coaches we work with and everybody else around is to take care of the process and the process is the number of points that we want to achieve in each cycle.
“Whoever happens to be our opponents in that space, we focus on making sure that we achieve our desired targets and we achieve the number of points we are looking for.
“If Pirates is the team that must give us the points that will help us to achieve our target, then [so be it]. We are focusing more on the process in making sure everybody understands that three points against Pirates, Baroka, TS Galaxy or whoever can help us achieve our ultimate objective targets.” Mngqithi added.
