The 34-year-old mentor has explained the main reason behind his team’s struggles this season following Saturday’s defeat to Amakhosi
Orlando Pirates coach Rhulani Mokwena has admitted the club is in the transition phase following a series of poor results that have seen them fall 15 points behind log leaders Kaizer Chiefs.
According to Mokwena, this is a new Pirates team compared to the previous season since they had to bring in no less than 10 new players, who all need to be introduced into the setup.
“We’ve worked very hard in trying to build our style of play, our game model and it started as you’ve rightly mentioned, with the previous head coach [Milutin Sredojevic],” Mokwena told the media.
“The difficulty has just been about introducing the new players and trying to adapt to the style of play, the environment and to rebuild in a way – it’s a new team.
“So, we understand the process and we understand what happened with our team. We know why we are where we are and we know the transition that took place.
“You know when you, unfortunately, have to let go of 15 players and you bring in 10 players, of course, there’s an adaptation that needs to take place.”
While Mokwena reiterated that big teams are judged by results, he said Pirates will not compromise their style of play just for the sake of winning matches.
The Sea Robbers have been playing good football all round but they haven’t been able to turn those performances into positive results on a consistent basis this season.
He added that everyone associated with the club, including the management, understands why Pirates are struggling to win matches.
“Of course, big clubs are judged by results and we know that,” added the 34-year-old mentor.
“We are not going to step down from that because the moment we step down from that, we lose our status as a big club but we are realistic and fortunately, our management understands football, and understands where we are and understands why we are where we are.
“And our supporters are football understanding people.
“But be that as it may, we’ve got to start turning these good performances into results.”
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