SuperSport coach Hunt wants help from PSL ahead of new season

SuperSport United coach Gavin Hunt has appealed to the Premier Soccer League (PSL) to come to their aid ahead of what will be a jam-packed season with the club also set to participate in the CAF Confederation Cup.

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Hunt will have to navigate a taxing schedule that includes Matsatsantsa a Pitori’s foray into continental football.

The PSL will also welcome a new knockout competition, the Carling Knockout Cup that replaces the Telkom Knockout which was last played in 2019.

Sekhukhune United will join SuperSport in the second-tier CAF competition while Mamelodi Sundowns and Orlando Pirates will play in CAF’s premier club competition, the Champions League.

“You do need help from the PSL with your fixtures like most teams have got,” Hunt said about fixture scheduling.

“I don’t know if we are going to get the same help in terms of spreading the games. And obviously traveling, if you can do it the expensive way, then it’s easier but we can’t do it that way. I’ll give an example, at Bidvest Wits we went to Guinea to play Horoya and it took us 27 hours and I went to Guinea with Kaizer Chiefs and it took us eight hours.”

Hunt also expressed the importance of having depth as he looks to bring in new faces.

They have lost a number of key players to DStv Premiership rivals in Thatayaone Ditlhokwe, Thapelo Maseko, Jamie Webber and Patrick Maswanganyi.

“We lost three to four players that played most of our games last year and if you take four players out of Sundowns, Chiefs, Pirates or Cape Town City or any of the top five teams last season, I think they will struggle,” Hunt said.

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“Especially, if you lose your main players so that’s what happened to us but it’s something I’ve got to learn to live with. I’ve got to try and reinforce the team and maybe try to find another way of playing in a short space of time.

“It’s not about numbers but we have to get better players in and if we can’t get better then I think some of these youngsters from the Diski team are good enough. It’s just a matter of getting them in at the right time and blending them in. We have to get players who can add value and there’s not much out there in the market that we operate in which is the free market so it’s not easy but we’re doing the best we can.”