Mooki - affectionately known as ‘Tsiki Tsiki’ - has been out of action since the middle of January as he has been working his way to full fitness in trying to overcome an ankle injury. He picked up the injury during Chiefs goalless draw with Silver Stars on the tenth of January and has been on the sidelines since.

Having recently overtaken Neil Tovey into second place on the Chiefs all time appearance list when he made his 365th appearance for The Amakhosi on the 21st December against Santos, Mooki is looking forward towards adding to his list of appearances when Chiefs face Arrows on Saturday.

“Sitting on the sidelines over the past month has been hard, as we had a number of important games which I would have liked to have been a part of,” said Mooki. “Thankfully I have made a full recovery and my ankle seems to be coping under the pressure that I have been exerting on it in the past few days”.

Mooki now in his thirteenth season with Chiefs resumed full training at the start of the week and is aiming for a starting berth against Arrows, he added “over the week the training has gone well, we also played a friendly game on Wednesday which I featured in and played around seventy minutes of the game and I felt fine”.

He does believe that the fact that he has come through training and the practice match unscathed, should stand him in good stead to see some match action against Arrows. “I have shown to the coach that I feel that I am ready to play again, with the way things have progressed at training and during Wednesday’s game I am confident that I will play some role on Saturday. I would not mind featuring at any time during the match, I am really itching to get back into first team action again,” explained Mooki.

With Chiefs facing Arrows this weekend, Thabo is well aware of the fact that Arrows relish playing against the so called big teams, as it was Thabo who was the first player to score a goal between Chiefs and Arrows on the 26th November 2000.

Although Mooki put Chiefs ahead in the 27th minute of that game Chiefs eventually landed up losing the game 3-1, Mooki recollects the events of that game during the 2000-2001 season.

“We took the lead and were playing well and suddenly we made a few mistakes and we found ourselves trailing by two goals, Arrows are such a team that they love running rings around the opposition. You cannot afford to give them space particularly in the midfield because they make good use of it, and will have the ball up to the likes of Khanyeza in no time, I do not need to explain further as to what he does once he has the goal his finishing abilities are an open secret,” said Mooki.

Having defeated Arrows in their last four meetings between the two teams Thabo though is confident, that Chiefs will be able to bounce back from last week Saturday’s defeat to Mamelodi Sundowns with a win in Orkney.

He further added, “The team suffered a setback last week - we have put that behind us, and we would like to carry on with our task of keeping up our title charge with a win over the weekend. Arrows have been playing well recently but we will be up to the challenge, we have said it over and over in recent games and that is - every game for us is more important than a cup final.”

Thabo has also called upon his teams to be more focused during matches in particular when defending from set pieces and make the most of them when they fall Chiefs way. As he said, “I do feel that in recent matches we have not dealt properly with set pieces, corners and free kicks we just need to show a bit more awareness in these kinds of situations.”

When the shoe is on the other foot he believes that The Amakhosi should be making more effective use of them “we have gotten a number of free kicks in and around the opposition 18 yard area. The thing is we have not made any of them count in our favour we need to work on being more deadly when these kinds of opportunities are presented to us,” concluded Mooki.

Golden Arrows will provide a strong test of Chiefs resolve on Saturday afternoon, Ernst Middendorp will be hoping that the return of Mooki and Rotson Kilambe to his team will allow Chiefs to cool things down and put the heat on Arrows in a game that is bound to be played in sweltering heat in Orkney.

Mooki has insisted that The Amakhosi will end February by winning their three remaining games for the month. Of their remaining three games for the month they will be facing Arrows twice, and will be looking to make it two wins over the Durban based outfit starting this weekend in Orkney.