Miguel Cardoso explains Thembinkosi Lorch's Sundowns exit

The 31-year-old Bafana international winger joined Downs from Orlando Pirates one year ago.

He went on to make 27 appearances, scoring seven goals and creating four, but had been used sparingly this season under the new Brazilians' boss.

Lorch has featured just seven times this season in all competitions, contributing with one goal and one assist.

He has since linked up with former Sundowns head coach Rulani Mokwena with Moroccan giants Wydad.

Cardoso explained why he allowed Lorch to leave, alongside Rushine de Reuck and Lebohang Maboe who have all secured loan deals, while Lesiba Nku was sold to Stellenbosch - as Jayden Adams, Keanu Cupido and Lucas Suarez were all signed by Cardoso, with Matias Esquivel returning from a loan spell in Argentina.

Cardoso explained: "All the decisions taken by the club were taken between me and the Sporting director. I watched Suarez a long time ago. As soon as we were in discussion with Sundowns and it was clear that I was coming here, we had analysed him.

"Regarding Lorch, as you might imagine, he was also not happy here. It's important that the players must be happy. Sometimes it's very important to give them the air because they need to breathe, so that they can express themselves and also get the game time they need because Lorch is not a young player.

"I spoke to all the players after everything was finalised and everyone was happy. That is the most important thing because we work with men that are not only football players, they have families and they also have kids.

"With Lesiba, I told him that 'it's time for you to go because you can go back home and your family is not happy’ so people need to have lives and I'm happy that things worked out in the right way so that they can follow their path and they can have a place where there will be happy."