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Johannesburg - Kaizer Chiefs may have to rotate the squad and leave out star winger Siphiwe Tshabalala for this weekend's Premiership clash with Black Leopards, coach Stuart Baxter said on Wednesday.
Tshabalala was part of the Bafana Bafana travelling squad to Brazil for an international friendly last week, and also turned out in Tuesday night's friendly against Mozambique in Nelspruit.
Bafana ran out 2-0 winners against their Southern African neighbours, but Tshabalala appeared to have picked up a mild injury.
While Baxter said the niggle was a concern, the severity of the injury had not yet been confirmed.
"I saw that Shabba (Tshabalala) went off with a knock, but how serious that is we don't know," said the former national coach.
"We've only had initial feedback from the national team saying that he did get a knock.
"It doesn't seem serious but we are going to monitor that on Wednesday.
"Shabba has played two games for his country. He's travelled halfway around the world and he ended up getting a kick.
"I'll be looking at the national players when they come back and it's possible we have to rotate and give one or two of them a bit of a rest."
Baxter added that he and the Chiefs medical staff would need to assess the returning players ahead of the Leopards tie, but he was confident the rest of the squad would be raring to go.
"It's going to be a challenge getting our national team players back and recuperating them properly," he said.
"Maybe we have to rotate a little bit because maybe a couple of them are too tired to give us 100 percent.
"I'm hoping that we can get through it but we'll need to see."
