Cape Town City coach Eric Tinkler has credited his players for the recent run of positive results that saw him being rewarded with a DStv Premiership coach of the month for April.
Since February this year, the Citizens are yet to lose a match, a turn of fortunes that has made them favourites to finish second on the log and secure the CAF Champions League spot.
The 51-year-old insists the accolade starts with the efforts shown by the players during the second round of the season.
“Obviously, I am elated to be awarded this award for coach of the month. But it’s not about me, to be honest, it’s about how we have responded to the second half of the season, and I think ultimately everybody deserves the accolade, not only myself, and obviously, it starts with the players,” said Tinkler.
“How they responded, the second half of the season. It could have been very easy for them to return from the break extremely despondent after how we ended up losing that MTN 8 final against Sundowns. We had three chances to win that game, two penalties, and you could see the disappointment of the players after, and that took a lot of steam from them.
“They believed that it was possible for us to climb the table. The intensity in training started to match the performances, and players started to take responsibility both on and off the field with the massive changes that we made, seven players leaving, I think people started holding up their hands, seeing an opportunity to get themselves into that starting line up, so I have to give credit to them because it’s them that’s on the field,” added Tinkler.
“They are the ones who have to ensure that we collect the type of results that we have collected since the term of the year and obviously my technical team because we have a very small squad in comparison to all the teams in the league.”
City are on 49 points with a match remaining, three points above third-placed Royal AM, who have two matches remaining.
