Manchester City manager Mark Hughes has stated that his side will be looking to up the ante against tonight’s Vodacom Challenge opponents, Kaizer Chiefs.
City will face ABSA Premiership giants at Durban’s 55,000 capacity Kings Park Stadium, also known as ‘ABSA Stadium’ at 7pm GMT.
On Sunday, a decidedly weakened City side suffered a 2-0 loss at the hands of Kasier Chiefs local rivals, Orlando Pirates.
Mark Hughes is looking to avoid a similar fate against the Chiefs, nicknamed Amakhosi (‘lords’ or ‘chiefs’) in Zulu, by fielding a more experienced and quality filled line-up in which the likes of Shaun Wright-Phillips and Manchester City new boy Gareth Barry could feature.
The City boss told the official website: ‘We’re very much looking forward to [the game], it’s good for us to be out here and we’re enjoying our time in South Africa
‘The important part of our time is that our conditioning is good and the games that we play are of a good standard – as we found out at the weekend!
‘Kaizer Chiefs will be a good test for us, the likelihood is that we will be a little bit stronger because we have more options in terms of players that we feel are ready for a game. The team will be different from last Saturday, but we are hoping to bring everybody up to speed very quickly if we can.’
Bulgarian international Martin Petrov, who returned from injury at the end of last season added: ‘The games are good for us, maybe we are a little bit tired because we change places and travel every couple of days, but that’s the job when you are a professional player. We’ll try to get a win on Tuesday night.
‘We have to show the Manager that we are all ready, we’ll keep training hard and try to be ready for the league season.
‘I think I came through Saturday well and showed I don’t have any problems with my knee, so I’ll look forward to more games.’
City’s latest acquisition Emmanuel Adebayor is expected to arrive in South Africa this evening in time to watch City’s second Vodacom Challenge match.
The game is being streamed live through the official website with coverage starting at 6.30pm. Click here for details.
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