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Cape Town - Maritzburg United coach Eric Tinkler believes the regularity with which Absa Premiership teams rotate their coaches is 'absurd' following the spate of sackings last week.
At the beginning of last week Clinton Larsen, Cavin Johnson and Lionel Soccoia were all given the boot in the space of 48 hours from their respective head coach roles at Chippa United, AmaZulu and Black Leopards.
It is true that the PSL has one of the highest turnovers of coaches in the world. For example, Chippa chairman Chippa Mpengesi has fired 28 coaches in 10 seasons and has proven himself to be the most trigger-happy of executives.
And Tinkler is being touted as the next manager to lose his job, with KickOff reporting that the Team of the Choice tactician has been given an ultimatum by Maritzburg CEO Farook Kodadia that he must get results from the club's next two games against Chippa and Baroka if he is to keep his job.
Tinkler joined Maritzburg in January, with the club rooted to the bottom of the table with a measly 11 points from 18 points. The former Bafana Bafana midfielder orchestrated a remarkable turnaround to save them from relegation.
The high of escaping the drop last season has been followed by the low of a poor start to the current campaign. The Team of Choice are second from bottom with two points from five games and have managed to find the back of the net just twice.
And the former Bafana Bafana midfielder, who was a member of the playing squad that won the 1996 Africa Cup of Nations, admits he is feeling the pressure and says one can never feel secure in their job if they are at the helm of a PSL club.
“We are always worried about our future,” Tinkler said. “In South Africa, you have to worry about your future. That’s the nature of the game. I think it’s become absurd (the firing of coaches). I can’t say much because now I will get into trouble if I say something.”
Tinkler has attributed his side's poor start to the season to an unsettled squad and believes the 12 new signings need time to settle.
“We’ve got to remember that we brought in 12 new players,” Tinkler said.
“That’s a lot of new faces to bring in. Four of those are foreign players, who have never played in the PSL before. If I start throwing all of them in at once, it becomes very difficult. They’ve still got to adapt to the pace of our game.
"We even have players like Keagan Buchanan, who was out for a long time. Thami Sangweni has been out for a long time. Adapting to the speed of our game and getting back into that is very difficult.”
Tinkler continued: “How we introduce those players is important. It probably was a bit early to introduce Clive (Augusto) against Sundowns, it was a big game for me to throw him in upfront. Maybe that’s the mistake I made. I probably should have started with (Judas) Moseamedi, to relieve that pressure.
"But it’s learning, he will only get better. I am very happy with the squad and I believe that we should be way further up than we are, we just need that first win. A point against Sundowns would have been a huge morale booster.”
After suffering a 2-1 defeat to Mamelodi Sundowns at Lucas Moripe Stadium on Saturday, Maritzburg now turn their attention to a must-win clash with Chippa on Friday night, before facing Baroka on Wednesday - both home matches.
- TeamTalk Media
