Zinnbauer urges Pirates players to keep it clean

Josef Zinnbauer has credited Orlando Pirates’ good momentum to all the hard work that his players put in at training, but says he is concerned about a number of his players who are getting suspensions due to yellow cards.

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This past weekend, the Buccaneers ground out a 3-1 victory over Highlands Park at the Orlando Stadium, but had to do so without the services of Vincent Pule and Innocent Maela following the pair’s suspension.

However, the Bucs mentor is happy with the performance of players who were called in for duty – particularly Bongani Sam and Paseka Mako and says the hard work they put in at training is showing.

“We have a problem with yellow cards at the moment, but we have players that can come in and play.

“All the players are improving in training and you saw today we brought in two players and they performed. All chances and goals that you see at the moment come from all the work we do at training sessions.

“We are united at the moment and we work well with the ball and against the ball,” said the German.

“We have about four weeks now since we started working together and the players have not got what we want from them 100%.”

With Maela and Pule coming back for Bucs’ tie against AmaZulu on Saturday, Zinnbauer will have to make changes again to his team with Ntsikelelo Nyauza and Abel Mabaso now under suspension.

“Ntsiki is out as well as Mabaso, but we have other players and I hope they will give their best performance. We will see during the next game.”

The Buccaneers coach has managed to win four games out of five since he arrived at the Soweto giants. The club is currently fifth on the log after collecting 30 points so far. And even though he has had to change his team now and then, he is happy with the competition at the club for places in the starting line-up.

“At the moment, we have good players that want to really be in the team and other players that are in the team but don’t want to slip out,” he said.

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