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Cape Town - Orlando Pirates coach Eric Tinkler has backed misfiring striker Thamsanqa Gabuza as his goal drought continues.
The CAF African player-of-the-year nominee has scored only one goal in his last eight starts for the Buccaneers and was booed by sections of the home crowd during their 2-1 loss to Mamelodi Sundowns at the Orlando Stadium.
Gabuza has been given the duties to lead the line alone since the departure of Kermit Erasmus and has looked short of confidence without the movement of an additional forward alongside him.
But Tinker feels other players should share the blame and will continue to stand by the former Golden Arrows ace in the belief that the goals will flowing soon.
"I think Thami himself knows that his work-rate is phenomenal. He covers so much ground that he is probably the hardest-working striker in the country if we look at the stats,” he said after the defeat to the Brazilians.
"Obviously, he knows that he needs to get a lot better in and around that box because he does get into situations of goalscoring and sometimes lets himself down. The fans obviously demand a lot.
"For me, you cannot always sit and blame the striker when you cannot blame the supply. You can have the two best strikers in the world, if you don't have the supply to the strikers then any striker will look bad. So it is an all-round effort in football today, it is everyone who needs to provide.
"He is going through a bit of a bad patch right now, getting chances and not putting them at the back of the net, but we continue to believe that the chance will come and he will turn it because he has proven it before."
