Miguel Cardoso has raised his concerns about the fact that red cards have become a regular occurrence at Mamelodi Sundowns – especially in the period since he took over.
Denis Onyango was sent off for the second time this season on Wednesday night in the 3-1 win over Marumo Gallants, making his red card the ninth that a Sundowns player has received this season.
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Tashreeq Matthews, Bathusi Aubaas (twice), Divine Lunga, Ronwen Williams, Khuliso Mudau, and Aubrey Modiba have also all been sent for an early shower.
"The way it finished wasn't the best in terms of having to deal with a red card again," says Cardoso.
"I think the cards are becoming too easy to be given to our players.
"I don't want to speak because it has nothing to do with Marumo.
"It has to do in general with the fact that teams that play against Sundowns always find moments to stop the game to deal with the moments in which we are stronger and manage aggressivity when we are close to achieving a goal.
"Today again, that happened, and it is a way to manage the game and nothing to say, but the question is in those moments I never saw a yellow card to players when losing time.
"Today, we saw for the first time Denis had to kick a ball to the front, he received a yellow card and after that he got the second one and a red.
"So, I think the red cards for Sundowns are becoming very cheap.
"They are coming out very easily," he notes, while addressing what happened in Bloemfontein after Onyango was sent off.
"I think we coped very well with the situation even though we had no more substitutions.
"So, we had to find a solution and Thapelo (Morena) was the player that we decided to put in the goals because he had experienced that already.
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"It was important to manage those six minutes and have the ball as much as possible.
"In that moment, we had to deal with the most difficult situation, which was a free kick, but thank God the ball was not in the goal.
"After that, it was quite simple to manage the game because our players have the quality to keep the ball as much as possible.
"Eventually, it wasn't as difficult as it could have been," says Cardoso.