Mamelodi Sundowns co-coach Manqoba Mngqithi says their victory over Marumo Gallants “was not as easy as people think”, despite them scoring four goals at the Peter Mokaba Stadium this past Sunday.

The Brazilians extended their unbeaten start to the season to nine games cruising to a comfortable 4-0 victory over Gallants through a brace by Peter Shalulile and goals from Themba Zwane and Pavol Safranko.

Sundowns have now kept 12 clean sheets in a row, while also setting a record of being unbeaten in 22 away games in succession.

The defending champions’ victory over Gallants has them remaining at the top of the DStv Premiership standings with 25 points, five ahead of Stellenbosch FC in second place, while Gallants are last on the log with only four points after nine matches.

“To be honest, there’s a lot of positives,” Mngqithi told SuperSport TV after the game.

“Another clean sheet. Very important for us. Four goals. A very good outcome. We’re a bit greedy because we’ve still got a deficit of probably one or two more goals.

“But, we still have one more game in this cycle because the last cycle we scored is less than what we wanted to score. But the number of clean sheets have already been achieved in this cycle.

“So, the players are really working very hard. The spirit is looking good in the group. Everyone is putting a shoulder in what we are trying to do. A very good attitude. One is always worried when you play these teams that everyone thinks we are going to win easily.

“Those games require a little bit more in terms of intrinsic motivation where the willpower to try and say we want to dominate and if possible those are the games we want to score as many goals as possible.”

He added: “But the truth of the matter is it was not as easy as people think. The moment we scored the second goal, I knew we had a chance of scoring more.

“The scary part was their high press. It destabilised us a bit and forced us in to many long balls and immediately we managed to find a double wide with Mosa on the left. It created a few more problems for them on our left channel but, truth be told, the second half they put up a better fight.”