Bucs’ ebb and flow leaves Ertugral bit sea sick
ORLANDO Pirates coach Muhsin Ertugral says one-third of his squad are not pulling their weight.
The forthright Pirates coach issued the damning appraisal and admitted that the Bucs’ organisational pattern has been all over the place in an unconvincing past few games.
Ertugral said this is what Pirates’ fitness chip satellite tracking system has revealed to him about Bucs’ training sessions.
Pirates had to rely on Tendai Ndoro’s late strike five minutes into injury time to salvage a 1-1 draw against Polokwane City at Peter Mokaba Stadium on Sunday‚ having conceded Puleng Tlolane’s 53rd-minute opener in among a host of other chances over the 90 minutes.
That result followed successive home draws – 1-1 against Platinum Stars and 0-0 against Cape Town City.
Speaking ahead of Sunday’s Telkom Knockout first round fixture against Lamontville Golden Arrows‚ Ertugral admitted Bucs are simply not playing well.
“It doesn’t matter where I have coached‚ not only in South Africa‚ my teams have always been well prepared‚ always positive and looking to go forward‚ and playing entertaining football‚” Bucs’ coach said.
“And I think with a certain degree of
“It’s a bit difficult for me at the moment. The problem for me is the expectation and the pressure on the boys.
“And I’m not saying the boys don’t give everything – sometimes we have to put the brakes on them in training.
“We have the GPS [tracking chip] system and success. two-thirds of the team are working crazy‚ working really hard. We have one-third that need to pull up their socks.
“It has to come to a standard that some of us here with the team need to pull – and we know that.
“But with Orlando Pirates even a draw is a loss. There is always psychological pressure and you have to deal with that.
“As a coach you have to stand in front of the players and give them the right direction.”
Ertugral‚ appointed at the beginning of this season to replace Eric Tinkler‚ lamented Bucs’ inability to find rhythm and harmony‚ and keep to an organisational pattern so far in 2016-17.
“We’re not playing well at all. The patterns are not right‚ the organisational forms are not good. There are a lot of elements we need to look into.
“We analyse every game and also criticise a lot – and the boys also need to get used to that. As much as the coach takes criticism‚ the players also need to get that.
“The important part is what can we do and how can we play football? What is our pattern‚ what are our strengths and what are our weaknesses?
“We are definitely looking into it and we need to be a little bit more as a team. That is very much a big factor for us – that we still have too many individuals in a game.
“When things are not working out they want to do things on their own. And it doesn’t work out actually.
“We need to look at the distances and the organisational frame‚ because we are not holding to it.”
Ertugral said key forwards Ndoro and Thabiso Kutumela are being treated for injuries ahead of the cup game against Arrows. — TMG Digital