Ernst Middendorp has made known where his priority is at Swallows as he negotiates his way into his latest coaching job in South Africa.
Middendorp has been in charge at Swallows since December and has so far collected eight points from seven games having found them on 13 from 12 matches.
READ | 'Pirates made me a USD millionaire' - Mbele
The Swallows assignment comes after previous jobs at Kaizer Chiefs, Maritzburg United, Golden Arrows, Bloemfontein Celtic, Chippa United, and Free State Stars during which he has taken charge of a combined total of just over 400 games.
"We definitely have a certain priority at Swallows meaning the PSL status in particular this year is crucial for us, but it doesn't mean that we are not taking it serious on Saturday," states Middendorp ahead of the trip to Athlone Stadium for the Nedbank Cup tie against Stellenbosch.
"We have two more points that I thought we would have had on the PSL table but unfortunately the goal was not allowed.
"We scored but nobody knows until now why (it was disallowed)," he says in reference to the match against TS Galaxy that ended in a draw.
For this weekend's Nedbank Cup, he is aware of the dynamics.
"Our issue is more with the new players coming in after the situation (FIFA transfer ban) that we were in that is known.
"Evans Rusike, Bongani Sam, David Uromi, Tawanda Macheke just to mention a few who haven't been involved in competitive matches in the past six, seven months or longer so that is a tricky situation for us.
"Do we push them more at training but as you saw with four changes on Friday you cannot expect 70 minutes from some players for now.
"Let us see what we can do in this tricky game on Saturday.
"I don't make a different approach for a cup or league game.
"It starts to get critical for us with all our resources and number of players available if it comes to a situation of playing Saturday, Tuesday then we have to start thinking about where our priority is," he says.
You must be Sign In to read and post comments.
Click here to register: Sign In