Starting the game like a pride of pouting peacocks and finishing with their wings unceremoniously clipped by Golden Arrows, the expensively-assembled Mamelodi Sundowns' squad slithered to an ignominious 4-2 Premier League defeat with 10 men at Atteridgeville's Super Stadium on Saturday night.

Down 2-0 against the opportunist, swiftly-striking Arrows within 29 minutes, the squad president Patrice Motsepe has assembled on the shaky foundation of compulsive spending, launched a concerted, if belated revival, reduced the deficit before half-time and were threatening to take control when full-back Shere Lekgothoane was shown a red card in the 51st minute for a cynical, reckless tackle.

It effectively ended the hopes of The Brazilians salvaging a jarring defeat that was largely of their own making, even though Katlego Mphela reduced the deficit to make the score 3-2 in the 79th minute after substitute Richard Henyekane had scored the first of his two sprightly goals for Arrows.

Mphela's textbook headed goal was the product of a masterly cross from Sundowns' substitute Dillon Sheppard, one of the team's most accomplished and professional players, who was inexplicably left out of the starting line-up.

And hapless Sundowns' coach Trott Moloto afterwards conceded "the buck stops here and the coach always takes the blame".

He has, it would seem, become more and more bewildered and confused the more players that Motsepe and technical director Ted Dumitru have provided him ? with team selections now going conspicuously awry.

Indeed, the Sundowns' coach had to make two substitutions before the interval while effectively closing the stable door after the horse had bolted, with the team's defence remaining at sixes and sevens.

Dumitru, for his part, had spent much of the week trying to misled the media as to the whereabouts and fitness of enfant terrible Mbulelo 'OJ' Mabizela ? eventually finding himself in an embarrassing corner when it was revealed the former Bafana Bafana captain had been involved in car smash while travelling to Maritzburg.

But, whatever else one might say about the gifted Mabizela and his indiscretions, his absence was again glaringly felt by a Sundowns' defence that was as leaky as a sieve.

And it was the the lurking Bafana midfielder, Kagisho Dikgacoi, who took advantage of this frailty to blast the ball into the net with a ferocious angled shot for the opening goal in only the sixth minute.

The Sundowns defence was caught embarrassingly and futilely appealing for off-side when Arrows' defender Joseph Musonda thundered a second shot into the net in the 29th minute.

And while Mozambican international striker Dario Monterio made the score 2-1 in the 38th minute with a clinically-placed shot and Sundowns' enjoyed a dominant 60 percent of possession overall ? despite playing with 10 men for almost half the game ? they were ultimately punished for their own indiscretions.