Stuart Baxter has confirmed Kaizer Chiefs will be without one of their key players for the remainder of the 2021/22 season!
At a press conference ahead of the Soweto Derby against Orlando Pirates on Saturday in the DStv Premiership, the Amakhosi coach told journalists that Sifiso Hlanti had torn his Achilles tendon at the morning's training session.
"Yeah, it's was like a shotgun. Everybody closest to him heard it, he raptured his Achilles and won't be back before six months," Baxter said when the Siya crew asked him to elaborate on the seriousness of Hlanti's injury.
The defender was one of several players who were set to make their debut in arguably the biggest fixture on the club's calendar every season (see gallery) having joined the Glamour Boys at the start of the campaign after spending a year at Swallows.
"I've got my moonboot on (Baxter has a fractured ankle) and I am not a happy camper at the moment, but I feel so sorry for Sifiso. This morning we did a walkthrough drill, then a handball drill and then 11 versus 11 for 15 minutes just to put down some patterns and tactical things for the game," the coach went further.
"We've done everything and we are in the last few minutes of the 15 and we get a long cross, Sifiso was back peddling and he put his foot down behind him and then boom – I am not joking, everyone within 20 metres heard it. It was like a pistol shot. He went off and when I came onto the field they said it's a total rapture. They could put their fingers together to where the Achilles is, it had snapped!".
Baxter said in his experience, having had the same operation, Hlanti won't be back "for another six months, I would guess" – that effectively ends the player's season.
