Lamontville Golden Arrows missed an opportunity to cover solid ground on Premiership leaders Mamelodi Sundowns after they were held to an away goalless draw by relegation-threatened Chippa United in Gqeberha on Sunday.

A win at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium would have seen Arrows cut Sundowns’ lead to three points after the leaders stumbled on Sunday‚ following a defeat for the first time in the DStv Premiership this season as Kaizer Chiefs came from behind to win by two goals in two minutes for a 2-1 victory at Loftus also on Sunday.

Mandla Ncikazi’s Arrows remain third on the log on 42 points after 24 matches and trail Sundowns by five points. They will be kicking themselves after their KwaZulu-Natal rivals claimed second spot with a 2-1 home victory over TS Galaxy on Saturday to move to 44 points.

Chippa stretched their winless run in the league to 11 matches and remain second from bottom and three points shy of the automatic relegation spot‚ which is currently occupied by Black Leopards‚ who earned a valuable point with a 1-1 draw against SuperSport United in Thohoyandou on Saturday.

The have won just three of their 24 league matches so far‚ drawing nine and losing 12 for their 18 points.

Chippa will find their battle against relegation even tougher in their next assignment when they travel to Johannesburg for Wednesday’s confrontation with a Chiefs team that will be high on confidence after inflicting a first league defeat on Sundowns this season‚ while also catapulting themselves into the top half of log table in the process.

Arrows also face a trip to Gauteng where they will have another opportunity to make up ground on Sundowns when visit the leaders at Loftus on also on Wednesday.