Mamelodi Sundowns coach Manqoba Mngqithi has explained why Teboho Mokoena and Khuliso Mudau didn’t make the match day squad in Tuesday’s Tshwane Derby.
Both players have been pillars for Sundowns, as well as for Bafana Bafana but were not selected for Masandawana’s 2-0 home win in the derby.
However, Mngqithi insisted there was nothing sinister behind their absence, and it was just based on periodisation after Mokoena and Mudau both featured twice for Bafana during the international break.
“They are still important players for the team, you must know that,” he told journalists.
“They are very important players and they are still going to come in and help us. But after the game of Mbabane it was very difficult for us to change the team that much.
“Because we achieved far more than in many other games – one would say it was Mbabane anyway, but we’ve a lot of these preliminary games before but we’ve never achieved 855 passes, 750-something passes completed, they xG probably in the last 170 matches, the number of shots on goal 21, and 11 of those on target, the goalkeeper in my opinion also should’ve gotten the Man of the Match award.
“But unfortunately, when you win like that and you’re resting some players because of the load they had, coming all the way from South Sudan and you’re saying they’ve played both games 90 minutes because both of them played two 90 minutes, when you go to SuperSport to say ‘no, let’s continue’.
“Sometimes it’s also important to show those [other] players, we have confidence in them. We are not just using them in the absence of certain players and that culture is going to happen a lot this season, considering that we’ve got so many competitions.
“And it’s important that we make sure we keep everybody hungry and interested, that’s very important.”
