'Why Sundowns will stumble in title race' - Eric Tinkler | OneFootball

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Title race far from over, insists Tinkler

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Sekhukhune United head coach Eric Tinkler says the Betway Premiership title race is still wide open despite suggestions it's over.

This comes after defending champions Mamelodi Sundowns beat log leaders Orlando Pirates in a top-of-the-table clash on Wednesday, to move within three points of the summit.

However, Tinkler is adamant the race is far from over, noting that fixture congestion will catch up with Miguel Cardoso's men, as some players suffered from cramps against the Buccaneers.

“I don't think the league is over yet, in my view. With the little bit that I saw last night [Wednesday] because we're living in Joburg, so we have power cuts here - I didn't see much of the second half but I saw players cramping from Sundowns and why is that?,” he said.

"It's the schedule that they have and somewhere along the line that's going to affect them. Now it's going to be about, are teams going to be able to take points off them. Are they beatable? Yes they are, but you can't deny the quality that they have.

"People might say they were lucky last night, I didn't see it as luck. I think it's the quality that they have that's why they won. And if you go to their result last season and the season before, it wasn't like they were beating people 2-0, 3-0, 4-0 - they were winning 1-0 consistently, scoring in the 90th minute, 89th minute - it's the quality that they possess.

"I think Pirates is a lot closer and I think Pirates will still have a lot to say about it. But I think ourselves, Chiefs, AmaZulu, TS Galaxy, we are also going to have something to say about it, so I think it's going to be a lot tighter - the gap is not going to be as big as it was in previous seasons, the gap will be close.

Furthermore, the former Cape Town City mentor believes Betway Premiership teams have upped the ante, which will make it even more difficult for Sundowns to assert their dominance like they are used to, having won eight consecutive championships.

“For Sundowns I think it's going to get harder and harder now because they obviously qualified further into CAF [Champions League]. I saw Galaxy are taking them to the other end of the world [Solomon Mahlangu Stadium in the Nedbank Cup], and that just makes their lives a lot more difficult,” Tinkler added.

"But again, I can't take away the quality that they have. Have they done this before? Yes they have. But like I said, what's important here is other clubs have raised the bar - Pirates have raised the bar, we are currently raising the bar, Kaizer Chiefs are performing a lot better than what they did in previous seasons, AmaZulu are having an outstanding season in my view, with a very young squad, Galaxy has got a helluva lot better.

"So, as I said before, there are teams that are going to take points away from them. I don't see that gap getting massive. We can go back maybe two, three weeks ago - the gap between ourselves where we sit [third] currently to ninth was smaller. That gap has actually got a lot bigger now from third to ninth, the gap has grown. But four is there, five is there, quite close.

"I think before Sundowns was already nine points ahead of everyone else, then you had Pirates maybe four, five points from everyone else and then you had from fifth place to around about 13th, it was only like five points in it - that has changed, there's a bigger gap now between those lower level teams that are laying 13th all the way to fifth - there's a massive gap. So, that in itself shows there has been an improvement.