Pavol always in the picture

Since joining Mamelodi Sundowns at the start of the season, Pavol Safranko (above) has seen little game time and all of his six appearances have been off the bench.

This is not because his coaches at Downs are unsatisfied with his performances – he has a couple of goals to his name – but that Manqoba Mngqithi and Rulani Mokwena believe that they have to be fair in their selection.

At the moment, Peter Shalulile is the first name down on paper when the Sundowns coaches pick their starting line-up.

He proved why he deserves to lead the attack as he banged in both goals in a 2-o win over Orlando Pirates in the DStv Premiership at the weekend.

“Safranko has done well, he works very hard but we can’t just put him in the starting line-up when Peter and Kermit Erasmus are doing well. He must fight for it. Once we start showing signs of favouring certain players ahead of others, it does not help,” said Mngqithi.

“But when a player earns his place and realises how difficult it is for him to get a chance to start a game, he will give it his best shot when he gets an opportunity to start.

“We are happy with the progress that he is making. He is looking very good in training and is scoring some goals for us. We believe it is a very long season and he will help us as the season goes on. At this stage we also want to see when we can give him an opportunity to start because of the progress that he is making,” he added.

Sundowns seem to be firing on all cylinders as they now turn their attention to the MTN8 semifinals tomorrow, where they face Golden Arrows in the second leg in Tshwane.

Downs go into the tie with an away goal after a 1-1 first-leg draw.

“I don’t think we are scoring enough goals considering the number of chances we create. We are still around 30% in terms of our conversion rate and that is not very good.”