Miguel Cardoso describes out of form Mamelodi Sundowns midfielder Nuno Santos as an 'extra-ordinary' player

Miguel Cardoso believes Nuno Santos is not an average player and that the Portoguese midfielder will regain his form at Mamelodi Sundowns.

Santos has featured less for Sundowns this season having established himself as one of the club's finest midfield players last season.

Yet this season he has not played any minute for the team but his coach and compatriot, Cardoso, believes he is not a below par talent.

"Sometimes there are those things that you can’t expose completely, sometimes there are things that happen inside the team that coaches cannot speak freely about them, not only to do with Nuno but a lot of things,” said Cardoso.

You should understand there’s some capacity to keep some of the things that happen, stable inside our walls. I’m not speaking about Nuno but in general, the stability comes when the moment the market closes and things start to go from there.

“You see how teams in South Africa for the moment start to struggle with these kinds of situations. It happens everywhere in the world, it’s clear the market touches people, it touches the connections and that stability helps settle down everybody so we can move forward with a clear understanding for everybody.”

“Nuno is an extraordinary player – you know that.

“How he performed in the Champions League, especially throughout the group stage, he was absolutely amazing. He gave us a lot of things – that is the Nuno that we saw and when the players smile, when the players are happy, it brings flow and energy.”