Bidvest Wits coach Gavin Hunt has expressed regret at letting Frank 'Gabadinho' Mhango join Orlando Pirates in June last year, saying the Students’ need to "balance the books” forced them to sell the striker.
In his debut Pirates season, Mhango has gone to torch the Premier Soccer League (PSL) with his goal-scoring exploits, finding the back of the net 14 times to top the scorers' chart.
Pirates still have seven league games to play before completing the season, but Mhango’s goals are already his highest tally he has managed in a season during his eight-year stay in the PSL.
This has left Hunt admitting that the Malawian was a “huge loss” for Wits who he says would have won the league title this season had Mhango remained at the club.
“Gabadinho? He is a big loss, big loss. We had financial problems at the beginning of the season. A lot of staff retrenched and that type of thing. Obviously, we needed to balance the books,” said Hunt as per IOL.
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“Do you think I didn’t want to keep him? Oh, yes, I wanted to keep him. With all his moods and stuff, I would have kept him.
“He is a guy that can score you goals. He has got goals in him and he can play across the front, right, left and centre. But how you keep him motivated for a period of six to 12 months, is obviously the secret. He’s got it.
“He was a huge loss to me, but I’m not the boss. Would you have him in your team? Yes, I can have him tomorrow. Right now, this season, if we had him we would win the league. That’s the bottom line because he would have got us seven or eight goals already.
“In our team, we’ve got one striker who has one goal in 26 games. The other one has four or five. That’s been a problem for us. If Mhango was there, you never know, we would have certainly had more goals.”
Hunt says when he signed Mhango from Golden Arrows in 2016, he knew he had “hit the jackpot” just a few games into the season.
But now following the forward's departure, Wits are struggling for goals with Gift Motupa and Deon Hotto being their top-scorers with five goals each.
