Mamelodi Sundowns coach Pitso Mosimane has refused to criticise defender Motjeka Madisha for his role in the goal which condemned Downs to a 1-1 draw with Highlands Park on Friday evening.

Madisha has not had the best of restarts, making a number of errors leading to goals in their three games since the resumption of football.

Madisha was at fault for two goals in the 3-2 win over Bidvest Wits last weekend before he redeemed himself with a quality performance in the goallless draw with Orlando Pirates on Tuesday.

Some pointed to Madisha after Shalulile opened the scoring for Highlands, but Mosimane, speaking to SuperSport TV post-match, refused to throw his player under the bus.

‘We should not go to [Motjeka] Madisha all the time – everybody goes to Madisha. He made a brilliant tackle here on Paseka Mako, he made another brilliant clearance against Pirates and no one was speaking. Now we’re speaking again about Madisha. We can’t destroy the player. Was he that bad? I don’t think so, hey. No, maybe he is, I’ll check again but I don’t think so,’ Mosimane said.

‘We’re trying. Today I tried to put the best team that can play, it came out a little bit in the first half, second half we struggled a little bit, in the last 15 minutes we dropped a little bit the energy levels. You can’t buy energy levels after four months’ break, so probably we must seal the games earlier.

‘OK, against [Bidvest] Wits we finished well but for the last two games, it’s tough! It’s difficult, it’s not easy, we want to play the way we always play. I’ve got your Themba Zwane and all that, it didn’t come out. So we move on, what are we gonna do? Probably we’re not adjusting easily but it’s OK, we still have to go on.

‘We’re a very ambitious club, we try. We want more. You can say we’re a little bit greedy. We don’t sit on our laurels and say we just won the Telkom [Knockout] Cup and then it’s OK. We’re fighting for the league. Yes, it’s not coming out, we’re fighting for the Nedbank Cup, we’re in the final. We’re trying. It’s difficult, it’s not easy. We’re not really the same team as [before lockdown] and what are you going to say?

‘We have Themba Zwane there, [Gaston] Sirino was OK, he came back a little bit better than I thought. Promise [Mkhuma] the youngster, at the end there [I thought] he would put it on target, he was a little bit emotional seeing himself score the first goal. I thought that’s the one we should have taken, to be honest.’