After selling two of their longest-serving big name players, former Ajax Cape Town striker Nathan Paulse has admitted that he’s worried about Stellenbosch FC‘s recruitment model.
Stellies cashed in on star striker Iqraam Rayners and captain Deano Van Rooyen in the current transfer window and have in the past sold the likes of Zitha Kwinika, Ashley Du Preez, Sibongiseni Mthethwa and Junior Mendieta just to mention a few since their promotion to the Betway Premiership in 2019.
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Paulse, 42, in his interview with iDiski Times senior writer Velile Mnyandu, in edition 168, applauded the Cape Winelands outfit for continuing with impressive performances despite losing big-name players but also expressed concern on how long it will last.
“For how long can they sustain the actual model that they have and still be a top four club? he said.
“You can look at them and say Stellenbosch has probably put themselves among the top clubs with a model which will come back to bite them.
“And hopefully it doesn’t happen now but in saying that, and as a former pro, I was never one to look at which players a team has sold because I was at Ajax and we had a lot of young players and the chances of being sold were always high, especially when you would do well.
“So it was almost expected that when we won the MTN8, for example, the next season or the next couple of months in the January transfer window, we were going to get interest.
“How they go about it is another thing and that obviously is down to squad depth, down to the recruitment, how well they have done that because look you don’t get a goal scorer like Rayners every other day. He is someone that has been built over time because you must remember he has also been away from Stellenbosch after he left them initially.
“So he has been through experiences that have seen him grow into the player that he is now. So to bring in someone to kind of just to fill in and seamlessly take over his job, I don’t think that will happen so, they have some tough questions to answer.
“But I’m sure even on the business side as well, I am sure if they agreed to the transfer then they had a contingency plan in place.”
