Amakhosi coach Muhsin Ertugral has pulled out two of the three Chiefs players called up by coach Carlos Alberto Parreira to the Bafana Bafana squad for this Wednesday’s COSAFA Cup Final against Zambia to be played in Bloemfontein.

The trio of Amakhosi players who were included in Parreira’s squad for the Zambia game were goalkeeper Itumeleng Khune, defender Moketi Tsotetsi and midfielder Siphiwe Tshabalala.

Given the current spate of injuries being suffered by Chiefs, Ertugral took the decision to withdraw Tsotetsi from the team, Khune who is suffering from a high fever since returning from Ghana with the U-23 national team has also been withdrawn by Ertugral while Tshabalala will be able to fulfil his call up.

Defensive gaps

Ertugral has cited injuries to Chiefs defenders Jimmy Tau and Jonathan Quartey as the reason for him taking the decision to make Tsotetsi unavailable for the game. According to the Chiefs coach Tsotetsi’s withdrawal is a precautionary measure as he explained, “we could not risk Moketi playing in the game as an injury to him would have been catastrophic for us, given the fact that we have a number of injuries at the back to contend with at the moment. After giving it careful thought and after much deliberation with my technical team we opted to keep Moketi with us, Siphiwe can still be part of the Bafana Bafana squad and it shows that had we not have had the injuries to Jimmy and Jonathan, Moketi too could have stayed in the squad”.

Tests for Khune

On Khune's withdrawal Chiefs team manager Bobby Motaung explains, The Amakhosi have been in touch with the South African Football Association and explained to them that Khune is not well enough to participate in the game.

Motaung added “we have sent a communiqué to SAFA stating our reasons for withdrawing the players, with regards to Itumeleng he has been suffering with a fever since returning about a week ago from Ghana where he played in an Olympic Qualifying game with Amaglug Glug”.

Khune, who had played in four consecutive league games for Chiefs as a result of his fever and the effects of being dehydrated, was unable to feature during Chiefs draw on Sunday with Platinum Stars.

The national U-23 goalkeeper will be going to hospital on Monday to under go tests to ascertain the reasons behind him experiencing the fever that he is”.