Orlando Pirates co-coach Fadlu Davids has commented on the recent snub of Gabadinho Mhango, which resulted in a lot of backlash from the club’s fans.
The 29-year-old striker was not in Pirates’ squad to face AmaZulu in the Nedbank Cup despite his fine performances at the African Cup of Nations, where he scored all three goals for Malawi.
Mandla Ncikazi had explained that Mhango has more competition at Pirates and needs to work hard in training like anybody else – a notion Davids has now reiterated.
“Yeah, it’s like what coach Mandla has said, Gabadinho Mhango is a fantastic player,” he told Thomas Mlambo on the Ultimate Sport Show.
“We know the frustration of the Orlando Pirates fans, the frustration of the technical team when you see Gabadinho Mhango performing the way he did at AFCON and if you take the first round of not being available.
“We need Gabadinho Mhango to start performing the way he does for Malawi for Pirates and that’s our job as coaches to get him to that level.
“It’s our job as coaches to get him to be on the back page and not on the front page, so it’s a work in progress he had a good full week training last week.
“Peprah scored four goals in two games towards the end of the season, like coach Mandla has said Lepasa is back, Gabadinho Mhango is on form, so we’ve got a full compliment of strikers to choose from.
“If you take last season, when we had no strikers available, under Josef Zinnbauer we ended up playing Deon Hotto as striker and now we’ve got six strikers on form and that is a fantastic thing to have as Orlando Pirates.
“We hope Gabadinho can continue his form and bring it on the pitch for Orlando Pirates.”
