Bafana eager to end goal drought

DEFENDER Thulani Hlatshwayo believes that Bafana Bafana’s misfiring strikers will make up for their recent travails in today’s opening 2017 African Cup of Nations qualifier against Gambia at the Moses Mabhida Stadium.

The plight of Bafana’s paucity of real striking options has come to the fore following Tokelo Rantie’s marriage-enforced absence and the general lack of goals from those who have been trialed by coach Shakes Mashaba.

Bafana went through the Cosafa Cup without scoring a goal and an inability to convert goal-scoring opportunities was at the heart of the national teams’ early exit at this year’s African Cup of Nations in Equatorial Guinea.

With no experienced marksman, Mashaba will have to throw one of his greenhorns into the white-hot heat of continental football.

Bafana’s striking problems are not new, but with the local Premier Soccer League not producing a striker that can score 20-plus goals a season, there is a serious problem in the production line.

Even the available overseas options are normally goal-shy, leaving the responsibility to the hard-working midfielders.

“The coach has been working on that problem and the guys cannot be blamed because they are really trying their best to get the goals. It’s not like they are missing purposefully so we have to support them and they know we are fully behind them so they can actually get the goals,” Hlatshwayo said.

“We haven’t been scoring but we have been defending well and we have been keeping clean sheets but it is important that we work hard in the final third.”