Santos prepare for Swallows match

2 September 2009

There may be a 11 days until Santos’ next competitive fixture, but the team is hard at work.

Speaking from a training session this morning, team manager Yusuf Gester confirmed that there will be no letting up from the People’s Team as they look for their third win in a row, following wins over Ajax Cape Town and Mamelodi Sundowns last week.

”We are now hard at work preparing for the Swallows game and will be playing some friendly matches against local sides. Everyone is fit, we have been lucky with that. It’s good for the coach to have a full strength squad to chose from as this creates healthy competition in the side.

”This will be important as we head into a congested fixture period following the match against Swallows,” said Gester.

He explained the absence of winger Graham King from last week’s matches.

”Graham is ok now, he was struggling with flu. The doctor warned that it could be dangerous for him to play, so as a precautionary measure he was rested. But it gave other players the chance to start a game and they have done well.”

Gester admits that Santos were up against it for periods in the Sundowns match, but points out that at the end of the game, the objective was achieved.

”We were under pressure defensively quite a lot in the second half, but we will take the result, especially after the players did not have long to recover after the Ajax game,” he said.

Gester also confirmed that Musa Otieno, who scored Santos’ second goal against Ajax, is off on international duty with Kenya.

Kenya are playing Mozambique in Maputo on September 6. The Kenyan side is currently third in Group B. On three points from three games, they trail Nigeria (five points) and Tunisia (seven points). Mozambique have one point.