Mamelodi Sundowns head coach Rulani Mokwena has slammed views from fans who believe Peter Shalulile's level has dropped after he only scored 12 goals in the 2022/23 season.
Shalulile set the bar high for himself in the 2021/22 campaign after winning the DStv Premiership golden boot award with 23 goals, two goals shy of a PSL record held by former Kaizer Chiefs striker Collins Mbesuma. He was "only" the joint-top goal-scorer with Khanyisa Mayo this past season.
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The Namibian, however, had a slow start to the season, that had just completed, and also had a muscular injury that ruled him out for at least three months, from October last year, where he only returned to playing competitively in January this season.Mokwena says he was disturbed by comments from fans that Shalulile's season has "regressed" and claimed that the 29-year old would have scored more goals, if it was not for the injury.
"How many goals do you think Peter (Shalulile) would have scored, had he played the entire season? A lot more," Mokwena said on The Pitchside Podcast.
"I saw someone saying Peter's season has regressed because he scored 12 goals. Marcelo Bielsa said something, he said there are three people ruining football, he said it's coaches, he called them fans, not supporters and he said the people that run the game."And then he said something important. He said 'The problem with society now is that we have more fans than supporters'. You find there are people in the game now who conclude and have the platform to share those opinions, because of social media," he said.
"So now, I only see the score and the winner of the awards and I'm like, 'He doesn't deserve it because he scored 12 goals'. Do you you know how many games this guy missed? No, you did not even see."
The young tactician continued and stressed that such views are "very damaging" and explained that Shalulile's circumstances are made even more difficult because Sundowns are playing more matches and have no time to rest.
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"These narratives are very damaging because Peter Shalulile sees this and (be like), 'So these people think my level has dropped?' The truth is he's done incredibly well to score the number of goals he's scored, given the number of games he's played," he said.
"And under the difficult circumstances of having to play Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday...and some of the players he was competing with were fresher. Some of them were playing one game in a week, you know what I mean?
"They had time to prepare for Sundowns, to prepare for the next game. We don't have that," he added.
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