Sandile ‘AK47’ Ndlovu – the former Mamelodi Sundowns and Bloemfontein Celtic striker – has offered advice to current strikers on how they can improve. 

In arguably the best season of his career, Ndlovu gave the then Kaizer Chiefs striker Collins Mbesuma a run for his money in the race for the Golden Boot during the 2004/05 season.

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At the time, Ndlovu had been with Dynamos in Limpopo while on a season-long loan deal from Sundowns, when he netted 18 goals for the now defunct club.       

“It isn’t about the improvement of defenders but our strikers need to apply the basics right. The defenders go out there to react to the actions of the strikers. The job of the defenders is to follow us strikers and watch each and every step we make and react to that. It’s never about them improving, because they don’t know what the strikers think when they approach them. All that they do is to react after a striker has acted,” said Ndlovu.

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“The biggest problem nowadays is that every Tom, Dick and Harry wants to score because of the incentives that come with scoring goals. The midfielders want to score goals more than the strikers. Our strikers should know how to position themselves and must know their responsibility on the field.

"Sometimes you see a striker going all the way deep in his own half to fetch the ball, and by the time he gets back to the opposition’s half where he should be scoring, he is already tired and ends up missing the goal. During my time, we stayed in the box and if we dropped we knew where to stop. I remember Gordon Igesund once said, ‘Sandile Ndlovu is dangerous inside the kitchen.’ He said I should be marked as I was dangerous in the box,” he added.

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