Mkhulise in Sundowns coach Pitso’s short-term plans

Mamelodi Sundowns’ exciting youngster Sphelele Mkhulise reminds Pitso Mosimane of Percy Tau when he was still coming up the ranks at Mamelodi Sundowns, before he made his dream move to Europe where he now plays in the Uefa Champions League with Belgian side Club Brugge.

READ: Pitso creates fresh dynamic at Sundowns

Mosimane intends to gradually integrate the 23-year-old into the team as he has given him a couple of games this season and the most notable one is when Mkhulise, who is nicknamed Pitso after his coach, was named Man-of-the-Match in a 1-0 league win over AmaZulu earlier this week.

“The young Mkhulise is progressively coming up very nicely. I am managing him and I know maybe I am holding him a little bit back, I should have released him a little bit earlier but I am using the method that I used with Motjeka Madisha and with Percy Tau,” said Mosimane.

“He must progressively come up and he will come right because sometimes if you give too much exposure (they might struggle). If he is ready to swim, then it is fine but at some stage I just want to protect him. Everyone wants him to play and you can see he is a good football player. He just needs a goal (to boost his confidence),” he added.

After bouncing back in the Absa Premiership, Sundowns will now kick-off the Caf Champions League group stages against Angolan side Petro da Luanda on Saturday night at Loftus Versfeld. As expected, “Jingles” did his homework on the Angolans.

“They are a very strong team in terms of physique and aggression. The Champions league is not the Absa Premiership, you don’t have to play very nice because who cares how you play? You just have to get the three points,” he said.

“Let’s be honest, Sundowns are not really where we want to be… we are grinding … we are getting the points and we move on. We don’t worry about frills and the decorations and all that,”

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