Tinkler hails signing of Mashego ‘twin’ Lyle Lakay

Lyle Lakay – who signed a new contract at Masandawana last season – won’t be leaving Sundowns permanently, but has headed out on loan to former club Cape Town City for the 2022/23 season.

With Terrence Mashego heading in the opposite direction, Tinkler has said it was essential for Cape Town City to have an experienced replacement to provide options alongside Marc Van Heerden.

“We made it an important task to try and bring Lyle, because Terrence was going to be a massive loss, and to replace him was going to be extremely, extremely difficult,” Tinkler told iDiski Times. 

“To get Lyle was our key objective. And, my chairman obviously needs to take a lot of credit for managing that.  Otherwise, it would have been a difficult task to try and replace him, and that’s nothing against Marc, Marc has other attributes. And he was exceptional now in the Congo, when he played left back. 

“But ja, Lyle brings you a lot of experience, set pieces, same forward play that Terrence offers. So it’s almost his twin, just a slightly older one, which we are happy to have.”

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Lakay has spoken out about his exit from Sundowns

Although there have been come controversial comments made by Lakay surrounding his unexpected exit from Sundowns, he has recently sought to set the record straight.

“I obviously had to agree before because it happened the week before where the clubs started speaking and there were talks. Obviously I had to wait for the answer for them to come to an agreement. So the [final] call came the Tuesday night to say ‘everything agreed, thumbs up’.

“It was not like it just happened. I wanted to clarify that because now it looked like I was speaking against the club, painting a bad picture, which is not the situation.”

Meanwhile, Sundowns posted a video to social media as they welcomed Mashego: “Let’s give a very warm welcome to Bafana Bafana left back, and one of our own, Terrence Mashego.”

Last month, Mamelodi Sundowns unveiled Marcelo Allende as one of their newest signings, and their fourth in the latest transfer window, and immediately included him on the bench against Stellenbosch FC.

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Ahead of the new season, Sundowns had bolstered their squad with carefully-considered recruits, while the Brazilians warmly welcomed the arrival of Abubeker Nasir, who has already made an immediate impact.

This past week, coach Rhulani Mokwena did not give much away, but did explain how Sundowns go about their recruitment business.

“What I can say to you is that we want the best players in this team, and we try to get the best players in this team. When they become available in the market we have an obligation to our supporters to make sure that we move in that space to make our team as competitive as we possibly can…

“We beat off a lot of good competition to get Marcelo Allende – he has a proven pedigree. He plays for his national team, imagine the quality and calibre of the players in the Chilean national team and he is able to sit here with us and work with us every day.

“That is the place that we are in, we recruit the best players. Of course, at this moment in time when we bring in we have to let go because you can’t have your cake and eat it. But you can’t have too many – that’s the honest truth. But the club will make an official statement.”

Earlier this year it was also confirmed that Moroccan defender Abdelmounaim Boutouil would also be joining Masandawana.

The arrival of Boutouil and Allende were initially hindered by visa and work permit application issues, but Sundowns were working hard to have both players registered.

Boutouil signed a three-year deal and the hope is that Peter Shalulile (Namibia) will successfully receive a permanent residence approval in the near future. That would open up a spot for Boutouil to be registered as one of five foreign players along with Gaston Sirino (Uruguay), Nasir, Allende and Erwin Saavedra (Bolivia).

According to KickOff.com, this situation looks likely to successfully materialise before the close of the window on 22 September, and “Boutouil could be available as soon as the next game”.

Sundowns are currently at the summit of the PSL standings

When considering there will soon be a two-week Fifa calendar break, the hope would be for Boutouil to be available for the MTN8 semi-final on 1 October against Pirates if all goes according to plan.

The previous Sundowns signing to be officially unveiled was Bongani Zungu who marks his return to Chloorkop after leaving the club in 2016 to play internationally.

Meanwhile, with Sundowns needing to carefully balance their books in terms of the ‘foreign player’ allowance of five registered signings, Slovakian striker Pavol Safranko was recently let go by the club.

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