THREE reasons why Orlando Pirates' title charge collapsed

THREE reasons why Orlando Pirates’ title charge collapsed

Orlando Pirates’ title aspirations are once again hanging by a thread and another defeat to Mamelodi Sundowns will all but end their dreams.

Orlando Pirates to play three away games in a row. Image: @orlandopirates/X

South African Football consultant Peter Du Toit has highlighted the reasons why Orlando Pirates‘ title charge collapsed.

The Buccaneers were leading the Betway Premiership at one point having won their opening seven matches. Since the beginning of 2025, the Soweto giants have lost four of their 11 matches, which has seen them fall 18 points behind Mamelodi Sundowns.

Du Toit said a lack of rotation has been the biggest reason why Orlando Pirates failed to keep up with Downs to fight for the title.

“If Pirates are not careful, they won’t go further in CAF and will struggle in the Nedbank Cup and that’s got to be avoided. My views, this game against Stellenbosch epitomized the problem. It can’t be more clear, you’re playing against 10 men, forget the nonsense they say sometimes it’s harder to play against 10 men, it’s not, it’s 11 against 10, you’ve got an extra man and you’re a quality team.

“If this game didn’t show the red light to Riveiro, then there’s a big problem. The biggest problem is the lack of rotation and there’s a second problem which we will dive into. Pirates have a big squad, what’s wrong with them, why is it not rotated,” he said on SoccerBeat.

Orlando Pirates title chances all but over

Du Toit told ex-Pirates midfielder Michael Morton that the Buccaneers started to drop after their 4-1 loss to Sundowns last month

“Pirates are bottom of the table in amount of starting 11 changes they made as Mike says, only 34,” he said.

“Why has Riveiro not made more changes to his starting lineup? surely there was a warning signal because everything worked well until they got hammered 4-1 by Sundowns and since then, the wheels have fallen off and their performance has dropped. You can see they are tired but yet they persist (with the same team),” Du Toit added.

The ex-professional footballer said Orlando Pirates needed fresh players to keep their title chances alive.

“The second problem is that there’s no injection of fresh players in the squad. The third problem is that they have a squad which they haven’t used.”