Muhsin Ertugral laid down the law and told his team that he will accept nothing more than a convincing win when they take on Golden Arrows after their feature less stale mate with Santos on the weekend, and the Chiefs coach got four goals from his charged up team when they won 4-2 on Wednesday evening. Ertugral made some changes and to good effect and played with a very attacking mind set fielding five midfielders who made all the difference and helped Chiefs hold the creative advantage over Arrows.

With their penultimate game of 2007 against an up beat Bloemfontein Celtic team at the Seisa Ramabodu Stadium on Sunday afternoon, Ertugral believes that as intimidating a venue it may be his team will be able to pass the test and win another three points.

Fan Mania

Ertugral feels that the Seisa Ramabodu Stadium can be very intimidating to visiting teams given the partisan support that Celtic enjoy in Bloemfontein, the compact nature of the stadium means that the noise level is made to feel a couple of decimals louder. Talking through his thoughts on the venue Ertugral said, “walking on to the pitch at the Seisa Ramabodu Stadium can be a very nerve wrecking experience for some teams given the fact that they up not just against Celtic but their passionate fans as well. It reminds me a lot of some of the stadiums in Turkey when you get out all you see is the colour of the home team”.

Gold and Black Passion

One thing that is for certain on Sunday is that the colour of the home team will not dominate through out on Sunday and Ertugral is relying on the Chiefs fans to help make the mood much friendlier The Amakhosi feel right at the cauldron that is the Seisa Ramabodu stadium as he added.“ We do have one plus factor in that we have lot of support every where we play and for the guys to see gold and black in the stands will be a huge psychological boost for them. I revel in this kind of situation going into such an environment against a confident home team and their fans, it will bring out the best in us”.

Defensive duties>

Chiefs will have further options at the back available to them on Sunday as both Ditheko Mototo and Onismor Bhasera come back from suspension, even though Ertugral has to contend with the absence of Derrick Spencer through injury. He is not losing much sleep over Spencer’s absence adding, “Fabian did sterling job coming on to replace Derrick against Arrows, he stuck with the front men and was always near them and narrowed down their options. I was really happy to see him come in and get stuck in, losing Derrick is a set back but we are confident that Fabian will once again help us keep stability at the back”.

Soft goals

The Chiefs coach though did express concern that his team did not look comfortable at defending set pieces on Wednesday evening, and conceded two goals from corners and should have defended better. As he said “the first goal I thought that Shaun had the ball under control and would have dealt with it, there was again a mix up and they capitalized on our mis communication. The second goal our marking was bad and we left the goal scorer completely open from the corner, we cannot think that because we 3-1 up in a game we can relax, we have to concentrate up to the final whistle”.

Midfield dominance

While he did say after last Sunday’s draw against Santos that he was not pleased with the contribution of his midfielders in the game, Ertugral was much buoyed by the performance of the likes of Siphiwe Tshabalala, Arthur Zwane, Gerald Sibeko and most notably David Mathebula. As the Amakhosi were able to find the space and capitalized well on the oppositions mistakes during the win over Arrows, he added “the system of play that we used against Arrows suited us and the guys enjoyed playing in the formation that we used. Mathebula was particularly effective in both open play and from set pieces, I just felt that we took our chances well against Arrows and we made the most of the opportunities that came our way in both open play and from set pieces and we need to do the same against Celtic. Make your chances count early on and you make life difficult for the opposition, that is a simple but effective formula to winning games.