New Orlando Pirates goalkeeper coach Andrew Sparkes has tasked his keepers to improve on last season’s performances.

The Bucanneers are in Ndola for the second part of their pre-season training and their newly appointed goalkeeper coach has revealed his thoughts on the Pirates keepers.

Speaking to Orlandopiratesfc.com, Sparkes said: ‘In any relationship, the starting point is in getting to know each other. We needed to understand the expectations and also what we want to achieve as a unit.

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‘With that in mind, my starting point was to see where the goalkeepers were last season, to analyse all of them and see how they performed and try to identify their strengths and other areas we can improve upon for the upcoming season.

‘The first two weeks of pre-season was a lot of hard work at training due to a lack of game time but we identified and worked on certain areas that I want them to excel in. We have done a lot of analysis of our training sessions as well, and this will be crucial in order to improve,’ he added.

The former Swansea City coach, however, did a lot of preparation before taking up his role at Pirates in order to understand each keeper’s strengths and weaknesses.

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The coach has highlighted the importance of a solid goalkeeping department and their improvement during the season.

‘There is a big responsibility that they carry as the last line of defence and our immediate expectation is for them to do better than last season, even if it’s by one game more.

‘The plan is based around where they are now, relative to where we want them to be, and the level we believe they can be, as Orlando Pirates goalkeepers.

‘We have an experienced bunch of guys who have all have played in the PSL and that bodes well for the club.’

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‘The most important thing is the start of the season and whoever takes that number one jersey needs to be ready. They are already competing for spots for that first league game so it will be interesting to see who steps up and performs in the pre-season games and training, and shows that they deserve the jersey,’ concluded the former New York Red Bulls coach.