Royal AM stand-in coach Abram “Wire” Nteo was like a rabbit in headlights trying to explain the absence of coach Khabo Zondo on the bench after their 3-1 DStv Premiership loss to SuperSport United on Tuesday.

With this defeat at Lucas Moripe Stadium in Atteridgeville, Royal AM missed out on the opportunity to climb to second spot in the standings and pressure is mounting as they are on a two-match losing streak.

Dan Malesela left Royal's trio of head coaches two weeks ago to join Marumo Gallants. The club also battled to clarify Malesela's situation soon before his departure. Now Zondo's absence from the bench has prompted speculation he is also set for a departure from the club owned by eccentric businesswoman Shauwn Mkhize.

Asked for clarity on the club's coaching situation, Nteo said he is unsure of Zondo's exact situation. Nteo said as far as he knows Zondo remains part of the club’s technical team.

“On coach Dan [Malesela], I understand he left, but for Khabo [Zondo], I don’t know what’s happening, but as far as I know he is still part of Royal AM.

“Maybe this thing of coach Khabo into the media affected some of the players, but we spoke to them before the game that he [Zondo] is still part of Royal AM, but I can’t comment more in terms of the changing of coaches.”

Nteo, who represented SA under-23 at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, added that Royal left Zondo in KwaZulu-Natal to work with players returning from injuries before Sunday's Caf Confederation Cup qualifier against Zesco United from Zambia at Moses Mabhida Stadium.

“We left the other team that is going to play the confederation game at the weekend and he is busy training them in Durban. Games are too close to each other and we want to speed up recoveries of players coming from injuries so that they will be able to play the game against Zesco.

“It was part of the plan to leave him [Zondo] and for us to come here to Pretoria and play against SuperSport.”

Nteo lambasted his players for a poor performance in the first half of their loss against SuperSport.

“We didn’t play well. I am not happy with the performance out there. But at the same time, the boys tried their best, especially in the second half.

“In the first half we defended too deep, we lost the ball easily and we never even had a shot on target. It was a poor performance in the first half, but they came back stronger in the second half where we managed to equalise, but you could see there were a lot of mistakes at the back.”

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