Johannesburg – SuperSport United coach Kaitano Tembo is excited to see what unheralded 21-year-old central midfielder Jess Donn can do given a greater opportunity now that Bafana Bafana international Dean Furman has left the club.
Furman, 32, is expected to announce which English Premiership he will be joining.
The Chelsea youth product became one of the Premier Soccer League’s (PSL) unsung stars winning the 2016 and 2017 Nedbank Cups with SuperSport, who he joined in 2015.
“In the last five years‚ since Dean arrived‚ we built our team around him because he’s been a true‚ true SuperSport United player‚ and it’s a huge loss for us‚” Tembo told an online press conference of the SA Football Journalists Association (Safja).
“At the same time I always try and look at the positives. There are young players who have been training and playing alongside Dean‚ seeing how a professional player behaves in terms of training and attitude towards matches.
“Dean is one player who never cheated us. All these five years‚ I’ll never come up and say‚ ‘This day Dean never did this’.
“I look at it and say‚ OK‚ if you have someone like Dean‚ you also have all these youngsters like Mbule and Mokoena. But there’s also Jesse Donn‚ whose also played and worked alongside Dean.
Jesse is a very good player‚ who’s played in the Nedbank Cup when he was at Ubuntu‚ and did very well there. So I’m looking forward to seeing him grabbing that opportunity as well‚ and seeing what he can do in those last six games.
“Probably Dean could have been a block in front of those young players‚ but that block’s no longer there so let’s see what they can do.”
SuperSport released Furman last month to return to the UK before the season’s closed-doors conclusion.
