AmaZulu coach Pablo Franco Martin might not have defenders in the upcoming games after Ramahlwe Mphahlele was the latest to pick up an injury.
Mphalele was taken off in the 39th minute against Chippa United at Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium last Saturday.
The former Kaizer Chiefs defender joins Abbubaker Mobara to be on the sidelines along with Taariq Fielies and Veluyeke Zulu, who are all nursing muscle injuries at the moment.
The latter duo was taken off in a goalless with against Orlando Pirates at the Moses Mabhida Stadium on Tuesday.
This coming weekend AmaZulu face Golden Arrows in the Durban Derby in the Carling Knockout Cup quarter-final, where it is a game of consequence as a winner will progress to the semi-final of the league cup.
But Martin will have to reshuffle his defense once again and try to hold a tricky and dangerous Arrows side, who just like Usuthu recently, beat Chiefs on Saturday.
“Rama’s injury, Fielies’ injury, Zulu’s injury. I think those injuries plus Junior Dion’s injury because he got injured against Pirates is due to that,” said Martin.
“It is because of the many games. We played last Tuesday [against Pirates], nobody consulted us about that game, nobody thought about the risk of playing this game.
“As I have already said, the health of these players is at risk. Now we have players who are going to be out for six to eight weeks.
“According to the results, Rama’s injury seems like probably a longer one and those decisions I think are hurting them as individuals, putting them at risk in their careers.
“Because we are talking about most of the cases of senior players who are facing these kinds of injuries, it takes longer to recover. Let’s see how they recover.
“We played from minute 30 because with one centre-back [because] we had no more in the squad.”
As they collected a point away from Chippa, Usuthu moved to ninth in the DStv Premiership table with 12 points after 10 matches.
