Orlando Pirates News Today: Zwane identifies Bucs’ weakness, Makhaula’s replacement found & more

Latest news about Orlando Pirates, including Eugene Zwane’s take on where they must improve and the young player who is seen as the ideal Makhehleni Makhaula replacement.

Zwane identifies Orlando Pirates’ biggest weakness

Orlando Pirates legend Eugene Zwane has identified areas of weakness where the Buccaneers must improve next season when they will seek to defend their title and look to challenge in the CAF Champions League.

“We’ve seen Pirates scoring a lot of goals, but most of the goal contributors were not out-and-out strikers; it was defenders and midfielders and sometimes strikers,” Zwane said on SABC as per KickOff.

“So, for Pirates to conquer Africa, they would need to have at least one regular goal-scorer; a goal-scorer that would give the team in excess of 15 to 20 goals a season.

“That would give them a chance to compete in the stages that I have mentioned. But otherwise, the talent is there, the coach is fantastic, technical support, the resources are there. All the team needs is to beef up the striking department and back-ups in one or two other departments.”

Selepe to replace Makhaula?

Orlando Pirates are reportedly planning for life after midfielder Makhehleni Makhaula with highly-rated youngster Simphiwe Selepe seen as his ideal replacement.

Selepe has started the club’s last two games, a surprise from coach Abdeslam Ouaddou, given the games were determining whether they win the title or not but he did well while Makhaula was on the bench.

This is seen as Pirates’ plan to replace 35-year-old Makhaula with the 21-year-old Salepe seen as an ideal internal solution rather than going out in the market to spend money.

Bucs youngster reveals message from Ouaddou

Orlando Pirates midfielder Simphiwe Selepe has revealed what coach Abdeslam Ouaddou told him after handing him a rare opportunity.

Salepe was a surprise inclusion in the club’s two most important games of the season, making his first start of the campaign against Durban City, before playing in the match with Orbit College when the Buccaneers needed to win to claim the title.

The 21-year-old impressed in both games and was voted Man of the Match against Orbit College.

“The coach told me to just play my football. Because I went such a long time without playing, my confidence was down, so the focus was just on rebuilding my confidence ahead of today’s game,” the Pirates Diski Challenge star told SuperSport TV regarding what Ouaddou told him.