Bafana Bafana coach Shakes Mashaba yesterday said the impact of missing first-team regulars like Dean Furman will be massively felt but also open an opportunity for the fringe players to make their mark.
Furman will miss Saturday's 2017 Africa Cup of Nations qualifier against Gambia at Moses Mabhida Stadium, with a knee injury. Sibusiso Vilakazi's ankle injury also sees him missing out. The captain will be announced later in the week.
"In terms of where players like Furman played, it is a drawback because we now have to call on a new player to fill in that void and perform," Mashaba said.
"We will miss Dean along with Sibusiso but I hope they can recover very quickly because there are a lot of things we need to venture into.
In terms of the captaincy, we have what we call house captains because at every camp we elect two or three players to become captain in the day."
Clubless Itumeleng Khune's inclusion lends some much needed stability in the goalkeeping department.
While Mashaba said he would continue with his policy of rotating keepers, he also admitted to not knowing much about Gambia.
"I haven't taken much of my time to get to know what Gambia are about. We will know them on the day we play them because what happens when you see Ghana playing them with 10 good players and they come back with 10 useless players and when you adjust it becomes difficult.
"We just need to work on our strong and weak points so that we can be ready for the opposition.
"I want people to think back to when we started with this team and we said we are building up a team and now we have laid a good foundation. However, that foundation doesn't say we must not look at other players because we also need to make sure that we give them a chance. If you look at the goalkeeping berth, we have three good goalkeepers.
"On the day, we need to make sure that whoever makes the list gives off their best."
Shakes banks on depth
Bafana Bafana coach Shakes Mashaba yesterday said the impact of missing first-team regulars like Dean Furman will be massively felt but also open an opportunity for the fringe players to make their mark.
Furman will miss Saturday's 2017 Africa Cup of Nations qualifier against Gambia at Moses Mabhida Stadium, with a knee injury. Sibusiso Vilakazi's ankle injury also sees him missing out. The captain will be announced later in the week.
"In terms of where players like Furman played, it is a drawback because we now have to call on a new player to fill in that void and perform," Mashaba said.
"We will miss Dean along with Sibusiso but I hope they can recover very quickly because there are a lot of things we need to venture into.
In terms of the captaincy, we have what we call house captains because at every camp we elect two or three players to become captain in the day."
Clubless Itumeleng Khune's inclusion lends some much needed stability in the goalkeeping department.
While Mashaba said he would continue with his policy of rotating keepers, he also admitted to not knowing much about Gambia.
"I haven't taken much of my time to get to know what Gambia are about. We will know them on the day we play them because what happens when you see Ghana playing them with 10 good players and they come back with 10 useless players and when you adjust it becomes difficult.
"We just need to work on our strong and weak points so that we can be ready for the opposition.
"I want people to think back to when we started with this team and we said we are building up a team and now we have laid a good foundation. However, that foundation doesn't say we must not look at other players because we also need to make sure that we give them a chance. If you look at the goalkeeping berth, we have three good goalkeepers.
"On the day, we need to make sure that whoever makes the list gives off their best."
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