Ouaddou hails thrilling title race as Betway Premiership heads for photo finish

Ouaddou was commenting after yet another emphatic 5-0 victory over Golden Arrows at the Orlando Amstel Arena last night, a result that still leaves them two points behind the “points machine” Mamelodi Sundowns, with only seven games to go in this campaign. 

Pirates had humiliated TS Galaxy 6-0 in their previous game and Ouaddou says this proves that it was not a fluke.

"Lots of people, thinking that maybe it was a little bit of luck against TS Galaxy, we can see that when our boys start to find the net they are efficient in the last third. It's not only that game, we've seen our team creating a lot of chances since the beginning of the season and now we started to see when they arrived at the end that they started to score,” Oouadou said. 

“So, I think it's a very good evening, I'm very proud of our boys tonight. I'm a very proud coach tonight and we are going to fight until the end. It's good for the interest of the PSL this season. 

“I think the fans love it and we can say that Pirates will not give up until the end of the season."

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It was yet another man of the match performance from Pirates and Bafana Bafana starman Relebohile Mofokeng as he scored a brace and was hugely influential in this game, where Oswin Appollis also netted a brace. 

Mofokeng had netted a hat-trick against Galaxy and won the last two player of the month awards back-to-back. 

Ouaddou says players like the School of Excellence product come once every 10 to 15 years.

"These kinds of players, you get players like that every 10 or 15 years. So, he has talent, it is in his blood, he's still young of course we need to give him some instruction in order to be even more efficient,” the coach added.

“Especially in that area where there are lots of duels, it's crowded so for us as coaches, the talent he has, technical quality he has, the intelligence he has but sometimes when you have such quality like that, sometimes you abuse these qualities. 

“Our job is just to make him aware which zone he can abuse but there are some strategic areas in the pitch where he needs to limit his touches and to use his cleverness. 

“It's what he's been doing since a lot of games, you can see that he's able to give assists to his teammates, he's able to score. He's mobile, very mobile in the middle. “I used to say that this kind of player, it's a shame for me if I put him on the side with the touchline, with 180 degrees of capacity to play because these kinds of players need 360 degrees of possibilities to play. 

“So, some people feel that he cannot play as a 10, I think he can play anywhere, not defender."