Shaun Bartlett confirms Cape Town Spurs’ striker search before window shuts

The newly promoted side find themselves bottom of the log table after three successive defeats, the latest coming away to Polokwane City on Saturday when they were beaten 3-1 by Rise and Shine.

With young Boitumelo Radiopane only returning to action in the second half of the campaign, Bartlett has made finding a forward his priority target.

"Well, at this moment obviously we are looking for a proven goal scorer, which I think every coach or team in the country is looking for. Currently, in the country there's nobody available so we've gotta try and obviously look abroad as well," Bartlett said.

"We won't see him [Radiopane] until January, it was a really bad injury. So, he had surgery and the doctor said three to five months. So, he only had the surgery in July which pretty much puts him out of the first half of the season."

As reported by SABC Sport, the Mother City outfit have signed defender Nicholas Lukhubeni on loan from Mamelodi Sundowns.

But Bartlett says their newest arrival still lacks match fitness.

"He's a great option for us on the right-hand side, biggest challenge for us at this moment in time, he's not match fit. So, we've gotta work on that. Maybe another three to four weeks before he's ready and then we'll be able to utilise his services. 

But at this moment in time, he's gotta obviously work on his individual program in order to benefit the team," the coach explained.

Bartlett has also promised to ring the changes against the Chilli Boys in an attempt to end the losing streak for the topflight rookies.

He says a win at home is non-negotiable.

"It's massive because you can't run away from it. The results speak for itself, you know the three losses in three games obviously means we need to do something different. Like I said maybe the personnel we've used thus far is not good enough. 

The fighting spirit, I've got to ask a lot of questions about some of the players being on the field. If they don't bring enough, we will look at different players that can actually help us. 

I think that's gonna be the biggest sort of challenge for us is to find the right players in order to change the squad."