Sibiya pleased with Highbury’s performance against Cape Town City

Highbury coach Kabelo Sibiya expressed delight as his team powered to a 3-1 Motsepe Foundation Championship win over fierce rivals Cape Town City at a lively Gelvandale Stadium on Friday.

Mervin Boji, Simphiwe Ndlovu and Tsepo Cetywayo scored to end the Citizens’ 11-match unbeaten streak in the league.

Cayden Fortune scored the only goal for City.

Ahead of the match, Sibiya said a win against City was critical not only to keep their promotion hopes alive, but also to create a gap between them and the teams below them in the standings.

The victory against the Cape Town side also saw the Yellow Nation bounce back from their 2-1 loss to The Bees in their previous encounter.

Highbury have now moved up to 10th place on the log with 26 points from 21 matches.

“I am happy with the result, honestly, but more than anything, I am pleased with the way the team performed — the guys played very well,” Sibiya said.

“We started on the front foot from the beginning and showed we were the home team by dominating the match.

“But we expected this because, honestly, we spoke about it; we had to lower our intensity for the past three days of training so that we could have more energy than our opponents had because they played on Tuesday.

“So, we knew that if we put them under pressure early, we would play on the front foot, play a bit quicker and up the intensity; we knew that we would have a lot of chances in the match.

“We had chances; I mean, we could have scored even more goals, but one should be very happy that we scored three goals today.

“We could have kept a clean sheet, but we’ll take the victory and the three goals. We have been looking for goals, honestly, and we are very happy that we scored three goals.”

After their 2-1 defeat to the Bees, the coach said they needed to have a solid backline against City.

“Lulama Maqoko is back in the defence, and we looked very solid today, to be honest. His partnership with Ngero Katua at the back looks very solid, but we have been improving defensively.

“Even in the previous match, it was just a lapse of concentration towards the end of the match, but we have improved defensively.”

Highbury’s next match is against Black Leopards at the Gevandale Stadium on Friday (3.30pm).