Muhsin Ertugral was not overjoyed on Friday of the fact that he would be resuming league action next week with a number of injuries. He does though believe that the recent camp in the Western Cape and the friendly matches during the PSL recess have given him a lot of reasons to be optimistic that a number of his younger squad members have the ability to fill the void that will be left by the missing players. Chiefs will be without striker Shaun Bartlett, midfielder Gerald Sibeko and defender Jimmy Tau when they tackle Thanda Royal Zulu in Rustenburg on Wednesday as Sibeko and Tau are recovering from injuries while Bartlett is working his way back to fitness after over coming a bout of bronchitis around two weeks ago.

Missing out

Amakhosi physiotherapist David Milner gave further details on the condition of the three high profile injury concerns for Chiefs to kaizerchiefs.com as he spoke about the problems defender Jimmy Tau had been encountering. He explained by saying, “Jimmy has had to have injections in the bottom of his foot as he has had some problems with the nerve endings - he has not trained much and we not sure at this point exactly when he will back in action we will wait and see how he progresses”. Milner further added that midfielder Gerald Sibeko will miss the game as he has a calf muscle strain. Striker Shaun Bartlett has been at full training in recent weeks but they will give him some more time to get fully fit as he recovers from Bronchitis.

Optimism

Muhsin Ertugral has not been pleased to have to deal with this number of injuries with matches resuming shortly and said, “obviously you need your best players available when getting fixtures off to a start and it is not ideal for our preparations to have these injuries so early on. We do have a squad of almost thirty players and we must show confidence in each squad member, by giving them the opportunity to play and this is the chance for some of them to step in and show their usefulness”.

Ertugral also feels that the younger players in the team have over the past few weeks demonstrated to him their willingness to want to come in and do the business for Chiefs of this The Amakhosi coach said. “Over the time we have had to prepare for the second half of the season, we have experimented by playing a number of the younger guys in the friendly matches. I was really impressed by the performances of players like Wayne Matle and Sandile Zuke, look at the way the youngsters performed in the Gauteng Cup there was a time during the match when the opposition needed a compass to find their footing on the field”.