Miguel Cardoso gives Saleng injury update, pleased with Tsiki progress | OneFootball

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Cardoso speaks on Saleng injury status, progress of Tsiki

Photo: Darren Stewart/ Gallo Images

Mamelodi Sundowns head coach Miguel Cardoso has provided an injury update on newly signed Monnapule Saleng and expressed delight with Katlego ‘Tsiki’ Ntsabeleng's progress.

The winger joined the defending champions from Betway Premiership title rivals Orlando Pirates last month, but is yet to make his debut as he was roped in while carrying an injury.

Cardoso has since clarified that Saleng, along with Arthur Sales, is still unavailable for selection, and called out misinformation regarding injured and fit players at Chloorkop.

“I see that there are a lot of comments because I'm obviously informed by Shupi [Nkgadima] that is the press officer, and also my assistant regarding what people speak about players. There's a lot of misinformation regarding the players that are injured or that are not injured,” he said.

"And it's very important that on the matchday people in general look at the report that is press released by our media officer so that they understand the players that can be lined up or not because there's a lot of arguments and discussions on players that are injured and cannot even play and there's no need for those kinds of bad thoughts let's say.

"Saleng is still injured. It's a situation that is obviously progressive, let's see when he can help the team. Also, Arthur is still out, which obviously makes you understand clearly that those are positions where we need the energy, we need the characteristics that both of them can bring in the team.

With the two players out of contention, the Downs mentor was left impressed by the stopgap performance of Tsiki in their Betway Premiership win over AmaZulu on Tuesday.

“But I'm very happy because I think today [Tuesday] we saw - we saw already in the cup match, the first half of Tsiki that was quite good and today we saw Tsiki in a good level. Obviously, he's not Arthur, he's not as talented as Arthur or Saleng,” Cardoso added.

"But in the characteristics that he has, I think he gave a lot to the team, which is fantastic obviously. The boy deserves because he had some tests, some moments of resilience where he stood and now he's able to show today that when we tell them we believe, it's through the difficulties that there's a lot of competition on the positions.