Menzo ‘cautious’ heading into Maritzburg tussle

Ajax Cape Town head coach Stanley Menzo is wary of the imminent threat posed by Maritzburg United, with the Team of Choice having proved a genuine thorn in the flesh of the Urban Warriors over the past few seasons.

The KwaZulu-Natal side have won the last three league encounters between the two sides, and play host to Menzo’s troops on the back of two positive results.

The Team of Choice beat Mamelodi Sundowns in the MTN8 quarterfinals before registering an impressive 2-0 win over Platinum Stars in their 2017-18 Absa Premiership opener this past weekend.

We kicked-off our campaign with a 1-1 draw against Golden Arrows in the ‘Mother City’ on Saturday with Rivaldo Coetzee bagging his first competitive goal for the club, following Lerato Lamola’s fortuitous opener.

Menzo has now set his sights accumulating all three points in Pietermaritzburg, with the former Dutch international hinting that the club will have to change their approach on their travels:

“We know how Maritzburg play so we have to try and figure a way out to combat that,” Menzo said. “I will almost say: ‘give them the ball and counter that’. But can we do that? Are we equipped to do that? That is the question…

“One thing is for certain, though, we won’t play as expansive as we did against Arrows – we have to be realistic – I know Maritzburg will want to hit us on the counter, but yes, against them we have to be more cautious.

“It is important that we pick up our first win, I am not happy with the result we got over the weekend, but a point is something, and hopefully we can build on that with three on Wednesday evening,” Menzo concluded.

Ajax Cape Town will travel to Pietermaritzburg on Tuesday ahead of our match against the Team of Choice at the Harry Gwala Stadium. Kick-off is at 19h30 CAT.

Follow us @ajaxcapetown (Twitter) for live updates from the Harry Gwala Stadium.