Sundowns coach Cardoso praises Saleng’s impact in debut victory

Mamelodi Sundowns coach Miguel Cardoso was impressed with the contribution of Monnapule Saleng after the winger’s debut in Downs’ 3-1 Betway Premiership victory over Sekhukhune United at Loftus Versfeld on Sunday.

The former Orlando Pirates midfielder came off the bench to make an immediate impact as he created the second goal scored by Iqraam Rayners and injected pace into Sundowns’ attack.

Cardoso believes Saleng will help Sundowns as they look to defend their league title, but said he won’t be putting pressure on him.

“It’s clear teams need players who can be aggressive towards defenders and those players need to start, but a team like Sundowns also needs players who do that from the bench in moments where teams are tired or broken,” Cardoso said in the post-match press conference.

“Saleng did well. He is a player who has quality, a player who wins his own duels and can play left or right wing.

“Unfortunately, I only started working with him because he was injured, but he made a fantastic recovery; we don’t want to put pressure on his comeback.

“I just hope he also understands everything moving forward because we support him very much.”

Cardoso was also pleased with Rayners, who netted a brace.

“We are all happy; I think he had difficult moments. Let’s hope he understands everything so he can move forward in the right direction.

“We support all our strikers. Lebo Mothiba has been doing an important job from the moment he played against Pirates, [showing] how he helped the team to press. So, we are happy when the players give their best and have their minds clean so they can perform.”

The result say Sundowns draw level with Orlando Pirates on 41 points in the title race, the Brazilians in second place on goal difference.

Cardoso was pleased with his side’s attitude and challenged them to continue collecting points against Lamontville Golden Arrows at Loftus on Wednesday (7.30pm).

“We need to fight for all the points for our objective, and we need to create that commitment. Anyway, teams that fight like this until the end usually get rewarded; today [Sunday], indeed that happened.

“And I think if we see the last three matches we’ve played, [where] we played Sekhukhune [at] home, AmaZulu away [and] Pirates away, it’s a tough road and the boys did well.”

Sowetan