Despite their defeat to Kaizer Chiefs, Cape Town City coach Jan Olde Riekerink is encouraged that his side created scoring opportunities, though they failed to convert them.

Riekerink feels they should have won the match at Cape Town Stadium had they converted some of the chances created throughout the game.

Chiefs rushed into a 2-0 lead as they capitalised on the Citizens’ poor defending in the first 20 minutes, with goals from Nkosingiphile Ngcobo and Happy Mashiane, while Fagrie Lakay scored for City late in the match to reduce the deficit.

“I think we deserve something better than a defeat out of this match after we created so many chances in the second half,” the coach said.

“What I’m happy about today is, we created chances. In the previous games, we had a few problems because we didn’t create enough, but against Chiefs, we created a lot of scoring chances. Hopefully, in our next game [Justin] Shonga will be able to play.”

Shonga completed his move to the Citizens from troubled Tshakhuma Tsha Madzivhandila last week.

After Amakhosi took the lead, City did not lose hope. They continued to play their possession football while also creating chances. Riekerink said they needed to be clinical ahead of their trip to Black Leopards at Thohoyandou Stadium on Wednesday.

“I think there is a good balance, and the players feel very comfortable on the ball, and we train a lot on how to play together, and they have their technical skills,” he said.

“I am a coach who likes to play this way, and we won games in the past. I think we were unlucky against Chiefs, and we could have got more than a defeat had we converted our opportunities.

“But we believe in what we are doing and we can win games with the way we are playing. In the first 20 minutes, they had two transitions where we were not organised, and those were mistakes we made, we got punished.”