Kaizer Chiefs coach Muhsin Ertugral could well have to do major alterations to his backline for Sundays ABSA Premier League match against PSL rivals Mamelodi Sundowns as he will be minus central defensive king ping Fabian McCarthy. As the Chiefs number six will be serving a one match suspension for collecting his third yellow card of the season, when The Amakhosi recently defeated Moroka Swallows in a Premier League game. Also in danger of missing the match on Sunday is Chiefs left back Onismor Bhasera who has been unable to train for the past two day as he has been nursing a swollen ankle. While question marks still remain over the availability of striker Shaun Bartlett, who missed the match against Swallows with an Achilles tendon injury and has still not yet fully recovered.

McCarthy missing

As the season has progressed McCarthy has entrenched himself in at centre back and has started in fourteen league matches, after sitting out the opening couple matches of the season as he was recovering from a root canal problem. He has comeback strongly and Muhsin Ertugral believes he will be sorely missed against Sundowns, “McCarthy has grown stronger game on game and he has a good influence on keeping things stable at the back. Knowing the kind of match that we will have against Sundowns it was important to have a player with his experience in a game of such magnitude, once we knew he was going to miss the Sundowns game. We threw Moketi on against Swallows so that he could get some time and be ready for Sunday’s match, I think that we planned well for the eventuality of not having Fabian”.

Bhasera broken

Onismor Bhasera has sat out all of Chiefs training sessions this past week and seems doubtful to feature in the match, he said to kaizerchiefs.com “I am in a lot of pain and I had expected the swelling on the ankle to have subsided by not. It has not which means that I now have to wait another day but at this stage I would not bet on playing in the game, lets wait and see”. Muhsin Ertugral is not to pleased to be with out Bhasera and he added “with two of our key defenders missing we have to go back to the drawing board and rethink our approach to the match, Onismor has really given us width on the left hand side. He has been good in defense and attack, a lot of re thinking and shuffling is needed from us”.