Orlando Pirates head coach Jose Riveiro says his tactical changes aren’t out of fear of losing players as they have a big enough squad to handle it.
In their 1-0 win over AmaZulu this past weekend, Makhehlene Makhaula, Miguel Timm and Deon Hotto were hauled off after receiving yellow cards.
When asked if the decisions were driven by trying to avoid suspensions in the upcoming league fixtures, the Spaniard brushed off the notion.
“We have 38 players in the squad, 80% are available to play in a good moment too,” Riveiro said about his changes to the team.
“If we get a yellow, we get a yellow, if it’s the fourth one, it’s the fourth one. We go to the next [player], we have many players ready to go and everybody is going to be needed in the last part of the season.”
With six games remaining, Pirates trail second-placed Stellenbosch by three points, but have found some form with 21 goals scored in seven games.
“We need to win games, week in, week out, we need to do it in the way we want to do it, playing the football that we want to play and everything else is a consequence,” he added.
“We don’t play for the result, it’s a consequence of doing things better than the opponent in our way and recently we managed to do it – in most of the minutes of the game, in most of the phases of the game, that’s where we getting results.
“Everybody wants to play and get results, everybody needs good results. We want to do it in a way, right now we’re close to the team we want to be in the next months, the future, in the next season – but there’s still big room for improvement.
“We take game after game, one by one, now we need to recover and Royal AM, three days later we travel to Cape Town and then we have a semi-final. There’s no time to feel so great right now because football is always about the next game.”
