SuperSport United winger Lyle Lakay admits they are likely to lose some of their top talents at the end of the season but is hopeful they change their strategy in future.
Since the exit of Stuart Baxter in 2017, the three-time DStv Premiership winners, all won under current head coach Gavin Hunt between 2007 and 2010, have notably changed their transfer and club policy into a development and selling club to maintain financial sustainability.
The likes of Aubrey Modiba, Grant Kekana, Teboho Mokoena, Sipho Mbule, Thapelo Maseko have all been sold to city rivals Mamelodi Sundowns with millions of rands in profits and notably not reinvested outside to secure talent capable of replacing them.
The Maststsansa squad this season is dominated by DStv Diski Challenge graduates, with Ime Okon and Shandre Campbell the pick of the bunch, and likely to attract interest from overseas markets due to their incredible potential.
“I needed coach Gavin here [to answer this],” Lakay said jokingly when asked by iDiski Times, if SuperSport should fight harder to retain their emerging talents.
“I just mentioned it now, you guys know… [coach] says he loses players, which is true, but I believe if we can keep the core of the team, we can succeed and continue to challenge.
“I don’t think it’s going to happen, to be honest [that we keep most players] there’s a few that’s going to leave, it’s in the club’s nature, it’s in their DNA to develop and then obviously people go, there’s many examples I can make.”
“But yeah, every year the club is rebuilding, but hopefully… we never know, things can change and the club can say we’re keeping our players and we’ll try to compete,” he contnued.
“That’s what happened back then when we won three league titles in a row. Hopefully, they can change their mind and decide to keep the players.”
SuperSport were knocked out of the group stage of the CAF Confederation Cup but are still in the quarter-final of the Nedbank Cup and in contention to qualify for CAF inter-club competitions this season with a potential top three finish.
