ZIMBABWE international striker Knox Mutizwa was the fall guy as Lamontville Golden Arrows suffered a 0-1 defeat to Royal AM in a South African DStv Premiership match at the Harry Gwala Stadium on Tuesday.
An off-tune Royal AM outfit quickly found their key and caught the visitors still in their previous Derby blues as they took the lead inside the opening two minutes through Menzi Masuku.
The 30-year-old midfielder started his first game since early August and easily found his feet. The hosts combined a few neat passes before playing Masuka through on goal.
He showed the poise and the quality of a veteran as he fired past Ismail Watenga in the first post from a tight angle, providing an early confidence booster for the host.
Having gone into the break a goal down for the second game in a row, Arrows returned with fresh ideas and were nearly level as they were awarded a penalty in the 70th minute.
However, having come off the bench, Knox Mutizwa fluffed his lines as his poorly taken penalty hit the legs of a diving Patrick Nyame.
That proved to be a costly miss for Golden Arrows.
After the match, Arrows coach Mabhuti Khenyeza was gracious in defeat adding that they would take some positives from the match.
“Sometimes you take games like this and accept that you lost and take a lot of positives from that,” Khenyeza said.
“We won games like this in the past when we got opportunities to score… We must not fault anyone and cry about it. Well done to Royal, they managed to protect their goal because in the second half, they attacked us twice and it was the same thing when we played against AmaZulu.
“I think some of the players will have a little bit of a break and play others. We need fresh legs. We played on Saturday, Tuesday and now Sunday, but we will push because it’s not only us other teams who are in the same situation.” – Sports Reporter/Wires.