Ahead of Sunday’s MTN8 quarter-final against AmaZulu, Cape Town City head coach Eric Tinkler has confirmed that their only injury concerns are two key players who are out with long-term injuries.
City travel to Durban for the game against former coach Benni McCarthy’s team, and Tinkler said they will be without new signing Darren Keet and Fagrie Lakay for quite some time still.
Keet’s injury which could see him out for a few months still, has prompted City to bring in the experience Hugo Marques, although the club is still waiting on a work permit for the Portuguese/Angolan.
This means it is likely that another new signing, Bongani Mpandle, or the young Marc Anderson could be in goal for the cup game. Reid Bombay, who was also at City last season, has left the club to join Stellenbosch.
Lakay is also out for some time, and Tinkler did mention they have an unnamed foreigner on trial, as it is an area of concern.
“Ja, I think, Darren, basically tore a muscle in his thigh,” Tinkler told the media.
“So he’s going to be out for a period between three to six months. So it’s quite an extensive period that he’s going to be out. Unfortunately, this is an injury that he still sustained at the previous club that he at.”
“In terms of other injury worries Fagrie is still out injured, he’s also going to be out for quite an extensive period unfortunately. So he also has a sportsman hernia injury, so we’re not exactly sure, today he went to the doctor for an injection and we will then know exactly how long he will be out, possibly a good month or two before we see Fagrie back on the playing field.
“Other than that everybody else is available barring obviously you know, the situation that we have with work permits, which we hope we will get that problem solved before we have to make the trip.”