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Evans Rusike

PIETERMARITZBURG. – The departure of Evans Rusike has certainly left a void in the Maritzburg United team, according to head coach Fadlu Davids. The Zimbabwean attacker was most recently roped on board by SuperSport United as they looked to find an answer to their goalscoring dilemma following the departure of Jeremy Brockie to Mamelodi Sundowns.

Rusike has already hit the ground running at Matsatsantsa, finding the back of the net in SuperSport’s recent win over Bloemfontein Celtic. Following Rusike’s transfer, Davids has hailed Rusike’s impact during his time with the Team of Choice, even suggesting that he is currently one of the best strikers in the Premier Soccer League.

“Evans is a fantastic player. Just last week‚ before he was sold‚ we looked at the stats‚” Davids was quoted as saying by Sowetan. Not in terms of goals and assists‚ but in terms of elements that are important to us. We look at the statistics and‚ you know‚ it’s (Mamelodi Sundowns forward) Percy Tau on top and him second.

“He’s one of the best strikers in the league and congratulations to SuperSport – they’ve got a fantastic player. He scored for them on the weekend.’’

This means he rates Rusike better than his countryman Khama Billiat. Meanwhile, the Maritzburg mentor admits that he will need to tweak his game plan a bit as he accounts for the loss of Rusike.

“And of course losing a player like that is always a situation, but we have to tweak‚ we have to change our attacking structures slightly to be able to accommodate the players who we have, because the players we have now have different strengths and we have to tweak the structures to get them to display their skills‚ play into certain areas on the pitch,” he concluded.

With Rusike now gone, Maritzburg will now need to find a way to pick themselves up after losing to Orlando Pirates this past weekend as they enter into a potential banana skin against Swallows FC in the Nedbank Cup on Saturday. – Goal.com