Riveiro happy Pirates bagged three points despite poor performance

Jose Riveiro was adamant Orlando Pirates wouldn't have beaten Chippa United with the kind of display they put in on Wednesday if it was four months ago, highlighting they've learnt to grind results even on their bad days.

Taking his tally to 15 and topping the scoring charts in the process, Tshegofatso Mabasa netted a brace that earned Pirates a 2-0 victory over Chippa at Orlando Stadium, boosting their chances of finishing second to qualify for the CAF Champions League as second-placed Stellies dropped two points by drawing goalless at home against AmaZulu in a synchronised fixture. 

Even so, Riveiro admitted that performance wise, they weren't in their element, lauding his troops for still managing to bag full points even without a convincing shift. The Spaniard felt they wouldn't have won with that kind of a performance four months ago. 

"Like I said to the guys [his players], it's very important that even though it wasn't maybe the best game in the last two months, we got the result that we were looking for, that's something to celebrate,'' Riveiro said.

"Maybe this game four months ago, we wouldn't have finished it with three points. Probably it would've ended 1-1 but now at this moment we are in a good space and even on days like today, where we weren't excellent... I think we weren't good enough, we're getting the results. I am so happy with the fact that on a not so excellent day we managed to get a 2-0 win."

Riveiro appeared to be chalking up their not so perfect performance against Chippa to tiredness as it was their fourth game in 11 days.

"My obligation is to always demand their [his players'] best in every game but I understand that we've been on a crazy run and it's normal that they feel fatigue sometimes because they're humans and today was difficult,'' Riveiro noted.

Third-placed Pirates and Stellenbosch are now separated by a single point with three matches left.