As first relayed to him on Monday evening when one of his key personal in his plans for Saturday’s big game against Orlando Pirates, had to leave the Bafana Bafana training early as a result of a recurring injury the Chiefs coach Muhsin Ertugral’s worst fears have been allayed and he has come to terms with the fact that he will go into the weekends outing without Siphiwe Tshabalala.

The left sided menace played in Chiefs last league game a week ago in Durban after missing three games as he had been injured during Chiefs Telkom Cup win over SuperSport United towards the end of October, it would seem that he will how ever need more time to over come the injury and the Chiefs coach is looking at him being ready for the Telkom Cup Final on the 1st December.

Despite Tshabalala not returning to Durban as he got back to Johannesburg with club team mate Itumeleng Khune on Wednesday afternoon, although they did not see any action they were part of the national team squad that played against Canada on Tuesday evening. Ertugral remains upbeat for the encounter with Pirates and could not have been happier with his team’s progress and preparations with the game just about three days away.

Tshabalala out

Divulging further into the fact that he will be with out the services of Tshabalala for Saturday’s crucial encounter, Ertugral said “we got information from the national team training on Monday and I knew from that point that we were not going to have him available for the game”.

Ertugral went on to add, “obviously he did not play or was not even on the bench for the Canada game which means that the injury might need for him to get some more tending to, based on the information that we have Siphiwe will not be playing any part in the game. Our plans for the game have gone ahead and the process has continued keeping in mind that he will not be playing in Durban on Saturday afternoon, it’s a big game and we had to be thorough in our preparations and when he hear he was injured we had to come up with a plan b”.

All good

Ertugral has drawn on his past derby experience to help him in his preparations for Saturday’s game, and could not be more happy with the way things have moved along over the week for his team and feels that they done have done the small tasks which will lead to making their job of getting three points on Saturday.

Speaking to kaizerchiefs.com after his Wednesday morning training session he said, “we have left nothing for the last minute all of our planning for this match began last Wednesday evening after our game against Sundowns. The guys know their opponents well, we know Durban and the ABSA Stadium better than Pirates and after Wednesday mornings session which went absolutely magnificently we have over come the hard part, all there is left now is for us to got out there and play ninety minutes of football like there is no tomorrow”.