Shalulile may 'come in as a big surprise' against Pirates: Sundowns coach Mngqithi

Mamelodi Sundowns co-coach Manqoba Mngqithi has not ruled out having key marksman Peter Shalulile “coming in as a big surprise” against Orlando Pirates in the second-leg of the MTN8 semi-final at Peter Mokaba Stadium in Polokwane on Saturday.

Shalulile, Sundowns and the league's top scorer in the past two seasons, missed the two Caf Champions League second round matches against La Passe of Seychelles that Sundowns won 15-1 on aggregate.

The Namibian was also not part of the Sundowns team that defeated Marumo Gallants 1-0 in Pretoria on Wednesday in a DStv Premiership match that restored the Brazilians to the top of the log.

“The biggest thing I’m happy about is that we tried to see how the team can perform without Peter in the past three matches.

“And in those matches we scored 16 goals. For us that is very important,” said Mngqithi on Thursday when asked for an update on Shalulile, who has netted six league goals this season.

“As to whether he [Shalulile] will be part of this one  I cannot be sure. We rested him over the past two or three matches because we also want to have him as fresh as possible.

“Probably he might come in as a big surprise for this match. It’s very difficult to say whether he’s in or out because the specialists have to give a call in that space. His condition is still OK physicality, so we have to wait and see what comes out from the specialists.”

The first leg ended 0-0 with Sundowns failing to have a shot on target, with Mngqithi concluding the loss against Pirates was mishandled by the media in their review of the match.

“This issue of no shots on goal was taken to the wrong angle,” said the Sundowns mentor.

“I think if you look at that game closely, you’ll realise there were many instances where we should have been in scoring positions than just merely talking about shots at goals.

“If I can cite a few: the two instances where [Khuliso] Mudau was found alone in the final third in three instances in the first half. Mudau was found alone in the far post where he had terrible execution in terms of crosses, those could have easily resulted in something.

“And there was one ball that was played by Ronwen [Williams] to Peter. He could have even left the ball to go and already he would have been facing the goalkeeper in the first half. He received the ball backwards. That’s a very big chance to score a goal not even to take a shot at goal.

“So I think this issue of shots on goals has been taken too far. It ignites a bit of fire even in our team to say this time around we must take shots at goals.”

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