Hunt on Shandre Campbell – I”m the only one that will tell him the truth’

SuperSport United coach Gavin Hunt is guarding against praising rising prospect Shandre Campbell who continues to shine in his debut PSL season.

The 18-year-old is on everyone’s lips due to his sparkling displays. He was in fantastic form in last Saturday’s 3-1 win over Richards Bay in the Nedbank Cup.

Campbell netted his second brace of the season to send Matsatsantsa a Pitori into the quarterfinals of the cup competition. His first came in a league encounter against Orlando Pirates late last year.

“I’m the only one that will tell him (Campbell) the truth isn’t it? because you as the media won’t tell him the truth. His parents are not going to tell him the truth, his agent is not going to tell him the truth,” the 59-year-old said.

“I’m the only one that will tell him the truth. That’s my job, it’s to keep people’s feet on the ground to keep them working and getting better. But this doesn’t help as well does it? Fantastic that he scored two goals but it doesn’t help.

“I’m super excited but I’m the guy that will pick up the pieces all the time. Like (Ime) Okon, he has been all over the media with this and Nigeria that. You need to keep their feet on the ground and I’ve done it for years.”

Room for improvement

Overall, Campbell has found the back of the net on five occasions across different competitions – twice in the league and three times in the Nedbank Cup. Hunt highlighted where the youngster’s game needs to improve in order for him to fulfil his potential. 

“When you have a lot of young players like we have, you have to play the game with football intelligence,” Hunt concluded.

“When their fullbacks come up high on the pitch, that’s where the space was for us to go in but we didn’t play there. We wanted to play the ball into feet and into our strikers. We should have been playing down the sides. That’s immaturity because we are only playing on the turn with the ball.

“That’s what a guy like Shandre he has to learn. He has to learn to play without the ball. Besides the two goals he scored, he certainly has to look at his performance but those are things that young players will learn.”