Eric Tinkler names one youngster he can’t afford to drop

Cape Town City head coach Eric Tinkler has named the highly rated youngster he can’t leave out of his starting 11 based on his recent performances and attitude.  

The 20-year-old played a huge role in their first DStv Premiership victory of the new season. City won 1-0 over newly promoted Polokwane City at Athlone Stadium on Sunday.

ERIC TINKLER NAMES PLAYER THAT’S UNDROPPABLE  

“In our six-week pre-season, there were two players that, for me, stepped up and showed a lot more maturity, which they lacked this past season and two seasons ago, which is Jaedin Rhodes and Taahir Goedeman,” Tinkler told the media.

“The two of them have stepped up and worked extremely hard through the pre-season, and Jaedin is showing in particular that he should be in my starting 11 every single week.” 

Rhodes recently signed a long-term contract as a reward for his displays last season, in which he made 18 appearances and provided two assists. In the next passage, Tinkler goes into what has changed for City’s young player of the season winner. 

“I think his professionalism and mentality has changed. He doesn’t see himself as a development player anymore, Goedeman is the same. (Before) They still thought we are development players; we’ll play here and there…. But both of them went, “Coach counsel us, we need to be providing more”. So I’m pleased about that.” 

Rhodes made his professional debut against Kaizer Chiefs last year February. Tinkler has slowly been drafting him into the senior team, giving him minutes here and there, but now it seems he is ready to play a crucial role in the new DStv Premiership campaign.

WHAT MAKES RHODES AND GOEDEMAN SPECIAL

“The beauty about both of them is their creativity; they have unbelievable creativity on the ball and, in small spaces, can create fantastic scoring situations. Both of them need to score more goals. That’s the one thing we lack from Jaedin, but we see a lot of it in training. So now, it’s about taking what he has in training and turning it into goals in the league, so I’m quite excited for those two.”

By Joshua Hendricks

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