They are on another level

Before signing for Mamelodi Sundowns last season,Lyle Lakay knew that he would be used as a leftback and not in his preferred left wing position, something that he surprisingly did not have a problem with. In his first season with the club last term, he played a key role as they went onto win an unprecedented ninth Absa Premiership league title. This season has been a bit of a slow one for Lakay, who has been used mostly as a substitute, but there’s still a lot of football to be played both locally and on the continent, so he has time to fight for his place in the starting line-up. In this interview, the former Cape Town City and Bloemfontein Celtic player chats to Soccer Laduma’s Tshepang Mailwane about his time at the Tshwane giants so far, their chances of winning the CAF Champions League and why he believes they can close the gap on current Kaizer Chiefs, who have been in fine form since the start of the campaign.

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Tshepang Mailwane: Lyle, let’s start withMamelodi Sundowns’ start to the season. Why do you guys often start slow?

Lyle Lakay: It’s nothing new to us. It’s not that we want to start slow. If you look at last season and the season before, we started slow, but usually around this time – or should I say December – we start picking up points and we get some momentum.

TM: Would you rather have games in hand or points in the bag?

LL: We have a game in hand, but you can’t always count the games in hand. We would like to close the gap and for us to do that we have to pick up points now. We’ve been in this situation before, so hopefully we can do it again where we turn things around. Like I said, December is usually the time where we turn things around.

TM: What would you say has worked for log leaders Kaizer Chiefs so far this season?

LL: You’re probably the fourth person who asks me this, ha, ha. But at the end of the day, it’s the questions we get asked, so we have to talk about it. I wouldn’t say they are lucky, but things have worked out for them. So, if things are going your way, you need to ride with it … why not? They have been doing well and you have to give them credit. The coach has turned things around for them, but we just want to focus on ourselves and do what we have to do in order to pick up points. We’ll give them credit and things have been going their way.

TM: Describe the feeling of winning your first league title last season, having missed out on winning it during your time at SuperSport United.