Mamelodi Sundowns will kick off its league campaign minus Esrom Nyandoro after the influential midfield kingpin was excused from training to attend to pressing family matters back home.
Nyandoro is already in Zimbabwe after being given the green light by coach Johan Neeskens. Sundowns will kick off their campaign against AmaZulu at home tomorrow.
Meanwhile, Sundowns coach Neeskens is expected to finalise the list of players in his squad for this season this weekend and indications are eight players could be sacrificed.
Firstly, Neeskens has to deal with the major headache of foreigners as there are only two spots available — with the Zimbabwean duo of Nyasha Mushekwi and Method Mwanjali along with Mozambican winger Elias Pelembe already registered with the Premier Soccer League.
What is of worry is they already have the Zimbabwean duo of Simba Sithole and Lionel Mutizwa, Nigerians Gbolahan Salami and Solomon Okpako along with Brazilian defender Eduardo Ferreira who all have contracts with the club.
Waiting is Ugandan keeper Denis Onyango which swells the number of foreigners to six — from which only two will be registered for this season. The other four will either be transfer-listed or loaned out.
KickOff.com has been informed that Ferreira will be transfer listed while Mutizwa — who is still injured — will be loaned out along with one of the two Nigerians — thought to be Salami — who hasn’t impressed Neeskens.
This will leave Sithole, Okpako and Onyango to battle it out for those two foreign spots.
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With the current number of players at the Sundowns training session totalling 40, the Dutch coach apparently wants to have only 28 by the end of next week.
Locals expected to face the sword are Richard Henyekane, Lucky Nguzana, Tshepo Ramokala with Thapelo Tshilo, Siyabonga Ngubane and Koketso Mmotong, possibly going on loan.
