Pirates coach Ncikazi would have liked to make January signings, but…

Orlando Pirates coach Mandla Ncikazi has admitted that he would have liked to have bolstered the squad with a couple of new signings in January, but says the timing to bring in new players wasn’t right for the team.

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The Pirates coach believes having a huge squad is an advantage, most importantly because the club will also be competing in the Caf Confederation Cup group stages.

“There is no coach that has ever been happy with the squad. We are always ambitious if we have enough resources like others. We are never enough. There are areas that you wish (to bolster) but sometimes, the timing of bringing players becomes important in our team. Personally, I would have loved to have certain players. But we respect the process within the club on how they do things.”

“You cannot take out players without bringing in new ones. Covid has taught me to expect the unexpected. And based on what is happening with Covid, you can’t have a very thin squad with the club being involved with Caf competition. We will need a lot of players.”

Pirates will have a long season competing in the Confederation Cup, the DStv Premiership and the Nedbank Cup, where they face AmaZulu FC in the last 32-round at the Orlando Stadium on Sunday.

And with that in mind, the former Golden Arrows mentor reveals that there will be a lot of changes in the team’s starting line-ups, hence they didn’t even release any player during the transfer window.

“If you look at the fixture list that we are going to be engaged in, we are going to rotate the players using some in the league, so we cannot release without bringing in. I think the club has taken a direction of continuity. I prefer working with a player who has been on the set up than bringing in a new player who will need time to adjust,” Ncikazi added.