University of Pretoria coach Kwanele Kopo has laid bare his three-year plan to take AmaTuks back into the Premiership, bemoaning that injuries have robbed them of consistency.
“I wouldn’t say we’ve turned things around. We have played 10 games of a three-year project so far. The important thing is that we are building a three-year project for promotion to the Premiership,” Kopo said.
“The first thing was to get the style of play right... To be different, to play a possession-based game, and I think we’ve ticked that box 99%. You can see we play from the back, we play through the zones, there’s good possession, [and] there’s good progression.”
The AmaTuks coach suggested that they’ve missed a number of key players like Prince Nxumalo and Aphelele Teto, among others, who are out injured.
“We haven’t had the consistency that we want because we have a lot of players injured. We’ve got Prince Nxumalo, who had an operation recently... He was the top goalscorer in this league two seasons ago,” Kopo rued.
“You’ve got Aphelele Teto out injured, a very important winger for us... You’ve [got] right-back Aka [Thulani Zandamela] out injured and [Abubeker] Nasir as well is out injured.
“Veli [Mothwa] was also out injured... He’s just played three games or so, so we’re still in a building process, but we are happy with the progress so far. However, we know that with the way we play, we should have accumulated more points than we have.”
Kopo feels youngsters are struggling to come out of their shell at times.
“We’ve got young players here who get scared sometimes, so if they can believe we will win more games with a lot of goals,” Kopo said.
Results
Leicesterford 1-1 Milford; Upington 1-2 Highbury; Bees 1-4 Leopards; Baroka 3-1 CPT City; Venda 0-0 AmaTuks; Midlands 0-1 Kruger; Lerumo 1-1 Lions; Gomora 0-0 Casric.
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