The club's head coach Steve Komphela is keeping his fingers crossed as Mathoho continues to make progress after toe surgery.
“Tower joined us in training on Wednesday so he's on the field now,” said Komphela at the MTN8 launch on Thursday night.
“What we did from his injury, he went to rehab and then he did fitness. From then on he was thrown back into the field and he might not necessarily be ready but we're happy to have him back.”
On Gould, Komphela added: “Morgan Gould is starting to run, trying to get his fitness back. Cardoso is still wearing a moon boot so we still have a few challenges but they are not challenges where one can say ‘what is this’.
“Mathoho should be ready [for the Maritzburg United game] but I have my doubts with Morgan, but with the miracle of medicine, you never know what will happen between now and then.”
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Komphela is, however, pleased with the experimental central pairing of Siyanda Xulu and Lorenzo Gordhino, who partnered each other in the penalty defeat to Swaziland's Mbabane Swallows in the King's Super Cup last weekend.
“Xulu has done well in the pre-season matches. We had serious problems as Cardoso, Gould, and Tower were all out injured and they are centre-backs, so we had nobody.
“We had to use Lorenzo and Xulu, they did tremendously well. Here and there we used Ivan Bukenya. So if you ask about Xulu, I think it was a wonderful opportunity that we missed out on three defenders so that we could see him closely, and there's a lot he's going to offer Chiefs.”