Betway Premiership: Cape Town City need to step up or trouble awaits – Peral

Photo Credit - Cape Town City FC.

Cape Town City interim coach Diogo Peral has outlined what his side must do to avoid relegation from the Betway Premiership this season.

With Royal AM expelled from the league, Cape Town City now sit 14th in the 16-team table – inside the relegation zone. Just below them are SuperSport United, with 23 points from 23 matches.

“Mentally, it's a tough place to be in. You have to try and work out where your next win is going to come from [...] It makes it difficult because sometimes we play well but we don't get the results, and the guys get discouraged, and we have to lift them up again,'' Peral said, as quoted by Sowetan.

“We need to get a win somewhere; we need to win games to get out of this situation. For sure, the teams at the bottom with us are all performing, and they'll get their wins, so we also need to step up, otherwise we will be in trouble at the end of the season.''

Looking ahead to their away fixture against Polokwane City on May 17 at Old Peter Mokaba Stadium, Peral acknowledged the challenge ahead: “Away games for us are really tough and the home games left are against really, really good opposition. But we have to believe. We're going to Polokwane [...] and I know that's a tough place to go to but we have to make it happen there.

“We'll do everything we can to prepare, both mentally and tactically, and the players have to come up with something [...] they must believe because we've done it against Sundowns before, so we will try to do it again.”

The Citizens away record this season paints a bleak picture: just one win from 14 matches on the road, with a whopping 10 defeats and three draws.