Swallows’ humiliating loss at the hands of Cape Town City in the MTN8 semifinal sent shock waves through the club and triggered much soul-searching ahead of their trip to high-flying Mamelodi Sundowns for a DStv Premiership match on Sunday at 6pm.

Swallows caretaker coach Sim Dladla revealed that he would sit down with the players to find out why they had performed poorly on Wednesday and see where they could improve ahead of the Sundowns match.

“I will definitely sit with the players to try unpack this performance because I think there is a problem that we need to put on the table and discuss it and maybe find solutions,” Dladla told the media after the 4-0 drubbing by City.

“I don’t really think these guys were unable to do the business. Something just kicked in and decided not to follow instructions any more because we had everything but the decision-making. We were not competing any more. I don't know why. The only thing can be mental.”

One of the problems Swallows are facing is that the goals seem to have dried up, having not scored in six successive matches.

Their defence has also been letting in soft goals and this is one of the problems Dladla will have to fix if they are to do better against Sundowns, and in the future.

The coach did not hide his disappointment after the match as he admitted that it was a below-par performance and that they deserved what they got.

“I hope I can get through to them to talk because honestly I don’t think Cape Town City were stronger than us in such a way they can score goals,” he said.

“I just feel completely [that] we gave it away and it is something that we need to discuss and to apply ourselves correctly to get the result.

“I think a change of heart and attitude, that’s what we need because you have to get players to compete. We did that in the first 40 minutes and after that we were just passengers.”