Leg weary Cape Town City is ready to kick on their season that has been poor thus far.
A team that finished second last term has struggled to replicate that this season, but it has been due to a mixed bag of injuries.
When the season started by losing the first three games, they were without captain Thami Mkhize, Nathan Fasika and Katlego Mashego due to injuries. The latter has since moved to Mamelodi Sundowns.
As the trio was out, it was the first time City lost three opening matches on the bounce since boss John Comitis formed the club by purchasing the status of Mpumalanga Black Aces ahead of the 2016/17 season.
They have only registered three wins in 12 matches, with 13 points to show heading to the Royal AM match at DHL Stadium tomorrow (17:30).
“Tomorrow we come up against the Royal AM team that has got a lot of quality players that are obviously playing well at home,’’ said Tinkler whose side have only won two home matches thus far.
“We need to come out with a lot of positive energy and look to get a positive result.
“We’ve got to have a lot of belief in ourselves and go into this game knowing that three points are extremely important for us at this stage of the season.
“We need to start climbing the league table – that’s going to be the main objective and also fortunately, we’ve come through this FIFA break without any major injury worries other than the one that we lost, right from the beginning.”
City will be without Fasika yet again on a long-term injury, and they will also miss the service of Lorenzo Gordinho, who was signed to close the Congolese’s absence. Gordinho will only be registered officially on 1 January when the transfer window is open. Other new signings who will miss this game are Juan Camilo Zapata and Bertrand Mani, with both waiting for work permits to be issued.
But Tinkler has some good news.
“But it’s good to see Patrick Fischer. He’s back from his long term injury,” said Tinkler.
“So having him available for selection is an added benefit. And then obviously, we still wait on the work permits and obviously they can only be registered from the first of Jan, so they would not be available.
“But everybody else is fit and raring to go. So quite happy with what I’ve seen this week from the boys.”
