There can be no talk of a weekend hangover today as we emerged from the weekend on top of the Premier Soccer League, a place we are now determined to hang on to for the next nine weeks. We could take a lot of positives out of our weekend performance against Bloemfontein Celtic as we began stringing the correct tunes towards getting our title defence on the correct note.

We had a bad first half against Celtic and we did not make much of an impression in the first half and I feel that Celtic grew in confidence as the first half wore on.

The team deserves a lot of praise for the way they performed in the second half as we really turned the game around and made Celtic work very hard to keep up with us. The big difference I feel was the substitutions made at the start of the first half; we introduced David Mathebula and Gert Schalkwyk in midfield which gave us a real edge over Celtic. Gert and David were able to penetrate the Celtic defense easily and were throwing balls wide and down the centre which made our forays upfront more effective and we looked dangerous going forward.

Over all our second half performance was much more impressive than the first and the entire team deserves praise for their performance on Saturday evening, at the back Fabian McCarthy and Patrick Mayo held together the centre of defense.

Rowen Fernandez goes from strength to strength from game to game as he kept another clean sheet, he made a big save in a one-on-one situation in the first half which kept the scores level.

David Obua played the attacking role he was given with great aplomb and once again proved that he and Arthur Zwane hold many keys for us in unlocking defenses. Obua used his head in more ways than one when he scored his goal. To think quickly and head the ball downward and away from the goalkeeper is the kind of action taken by a truly seasoned professional.

For the next week, our mind turns away from league football towards the sudden death element of Cup competition. I am aware of the history of Chiefs in the ABSA Cup and the fact that we have been unable to proceed far in this competition since its change of sponsor three seasons ago. Chiefs do not have a good record over SuperSport United in Cup Competitions, to me all of this is history and it needs to be rewritten starting this weekend.

We are determined to win silverware this season and with our current standing in the league I am confident we can win the league championship. It is also our objective to have a good run in Cup competition. Even though SuperSport are the defending champions and they have had a good run in various Cups over the past few seasons, I feel that they are ready for picking at the moment. Their form of late has not been the best and the form book does not really apply in Cup competitions - they possess many faults which are ready for exploitation.

It might not be an easy task but I am sure we will be able to go into the next round, it is in our favour to face tough competition first up with the way the draw was done. It will be good for us to face teams from the Mvela Golden League as we don't play teams from other divisions often.

I will chat more on the match against SuperSport on Friday and I will take you through the preparations and team news for the game.

Until then stay out of trouble and spread love and peace.

Yours in being top of the PSL

Ernst Middendorp