Riveiro defends misfiring Orlando Pirates strikers

Orlando Pirates head coach Jose Riveiro has come to the defence of his strikers, saying the role of a front-man is not just about scoring goals, but has many different aspects in modern day football.

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Riveiro’s defence for Pirates strikers comes after they once against wasted chances in the 1-0 win over Marumo Gallants at the Orlando Stadium on Wednesday. The winning goal was scored by Paseka Mako.

Of the four goals scored by Pirates so far this season, Eva Nga is the only striker to have found the back of the net. The other goals were scored by defender Nkosinathi Sibisi and wingers Deon Hotto and Mako.

“Nowadays in football the roles are not as simple as in the past. The role of the striker is much more than scoring. They score goals because they are close to the goals it is in their nature and we signed those players because we know they are going to score goals. You have to evaluate the performance of our strikers in many aspects, not only the final product,” said the Pirates coach after the Gallants game.

“The way we play, scoring goals is the responsibility of our strikers, number 10s, wing-backs, like you saw, and last time it was Deon Hotto, today (Wednesday) it’s Paseka Mako. We have to share that responsibility (of scoring goals). We cannot put the responsibility on our strikers only because they are doing a lot,” he added.

“We cannot keep the consistency we are showing in our defence without the work of our strikers. We need all of them, that is why we always need our front players to always be fresh because we need them to be compact.”

Meanwhile, the win against took the Soweto giants to the summit of the league table with 11 points.

Pirates will next meet Royal AM in a MTN8 quarterfinal clash away in Durban on Saturday.