Orlando Pirates head coach Abdeslam Ouaddou has revealed that Relebohile Mofokeng being relegated to the bench is about him trying to manage the squad for future matches.
Ouaddou rang quite a number of changes against Marumo Gallants after they succumbed to a 1-0 defeat to Sekhukhune United in their season opening Betway Premiership encounter. Among the surprise changes was Mofokeng with his introduction only coming in the 57th minute in place of new signing Tshepang Moremi.
The Buccaneers starlet was benched alongside Sipho Mbule who most people also expected to start the game and the coach said the decision was influenced by the fact that Pirates have an important game coming on Saturday.
“Like I told you we have an important game soon,” said Ouaddou.
“You have seen even Mbule a very important player. Some players have stayed in Johannesburg as well so yeah we played that game but we are thinking as well for the next games. So it’s a choice that we did.”
Ouaddou emphasised that changes were also influenced by the size of his team while lamenting that if Pirates had won the game, there wouldn’t be such criticism on his sections.
“We have such many players and we decided this line-up and because we have many games as well,” added the former Moroccan international.
“When you make such a decision you have to understand that we are playing in the MTN[8] Cup as well and against a very strong team. So we have to make some choices and it is what we did.
“If we had won maybe the choices would be good but now we lost of course people will say the choices were not good. But it’s football, it’s like that we made some choices and that’s it.”
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