Posted in News on Apr 22, 2008.
Tshabalala will miss the match as he has to serve a mandatory one match suspension after he collected his third yellow card of the season, when Chiefs recently loss to Sundowns in a league match.
Ertugral says that going into the match with out Tshabalala is a huge loss to Chiefs, as the tricky winger is able to offer them extra depth and has really been on top of his game recently.
Chiefs also face the possibility of not having their Ghanaian defender Jonathan Quartey when they face Santos; the Ghana youth international injured himself around ten days ago when Chiefs were last in league action on the 13th April and has not trained since.
Tshabalala out
Commenting on going into the game without Tshabalala Ertugral said, “Siphiwe has been one of our best players over the past month or so, he has the ability to take on players and get those all-important crosses into the area”.
The Chiefs coach did say that he was not sure as to who would deputize for the missing Bafana Bafana players adding, “not having Siphiwe has troubled me some what we are working on our combination play and tactics for the match and hopefully by Thursday our alternate plans will be complete. Right now we have been working on our strategy with out him, it will take us another session or so to be tactically ready for Santos”.
McCarthy return
Ertugral is not too worried about not having Jonathan Quartey for the game on Saturday evening, as Fabian McCarthy returns to action having missed the last game as he too was serving a suspension.
An optimistic Ertugral said “in defense we are pretty much covered, Fabian missed the last match and Moketi Tsotetsi came in and did well as cover for him. Now we have Fabian back so being with out Jonathan is not as worrying for myself and the technical team.”
On the issue on the expected recovery time of the Ghanaian Ertugral added, “really we not sure at the moment the doctors tell me they will give him another week before any real decision can be made”.
