New SuperSport United coach with club CEO Stanley Matthews at the SuperSport Studio 6, Johannesburg on Thursday. (Muzi Ntombela/BackpagePix)
SuperSport United chief executive officer Stan Matthews has revealed that Gavin Hunt is expected to do well in the DStv Premiership.
ALSO READ: New SuperSport coach Hunt says he left Chiefs in a better place
Matthews, however, adds that this is not Hunt’s official mandate following his unveiling on Thursday.
Being the only SuperSport coach to have won the league when he claimed it three times in a row between 2007 and 2010, Hunt is expected to challenge for the league title again.
“Gavin knows our philosophy, he knows what we are trying to build. He left a young baby in Ronwen Williams and now he comes back to find him as the Bafana Bafana captain. Gavin has full confidence in everyone in the club and our youth structures. The club is about more than just the first team even though it is a major reflection of where we are at the moment,” said Matthews.
“We have not finished in the top-four since Gavin left and that will be the first challenge and task for him. The bread and butter for him will be the league and that is something that my chairman, Khulu Sibiya took on board very much. We had a great cup pedigree, we made 17 cup finals and we won nine of them. We want to be more consistent and closer to the top challengers in the league and we have not been able to do that in many years,” he added.
The Pretoria-based side last won a cup in 2019 under Kaitano Tembo, and while domestic cups will be welcomed, SuperSport want the former Kaizer Chiefs coach to challenge Sundowns, or whoever will be leading the pack in the race for league honours.
“Even with the cups that we won, the back-to-back Nedbank Cups, the two MTN8 titles in three years, we could not break into the top four in the league and I think Gavin will bring that consistency. He knows how he wants to build the team and he is very good at constructing a team that wins points. We want to see those points tick over in the DStv Premiership,” said Matthews.
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