Lamontville Golden Arrows coach Mandla Ncikazi would not be drawn on the circumstances surrounding his departure this month as a long-time Orlando Pirates assistant, saying even if there were problems involved, “you are not going to know”.

Pirates head coach Abdeslam Ouaddou denied reports of a rift on October 22, hours before the Buccaneers announced Ncikazi’s exit.

Ncikazi joined Arrows soon after that to replace Pitso Dladla and lost his second match on Tuesday night.

Arrows went down 1-0 to Mamelodi Sundowns in their Carling Knockout Cup quarterfinal at Loftus Versfeld in Pretoria, which followed a Betway Premiership defeat by the same scoreline against AmaZulu.

Ncikazi was asked after the cup game if he would like to clear the air on his Buccaneers departure.

“For the future, as a principle and as a man of my age you don’t talk ill about your former employer because you will offend them,” the Arrows coach responded.

“Equally, when I start talking about my former employer, I am offending my current employer.

“Every house has a toilet. As a man you don’t have a responsibility of telling every family that there are challenges in your family.

“Even if there was a problem, you are not going to know.

"Because I’m a man, I’ve got a responsibility to protect the environment I work in, irrespective of the environment.

“In every club I have worked for, there have been issues but I don’t have a responsibility to publicly tell [anyone about it].

“I’ve got no comment, I’ve got no issue to answer.”

Sundowns counterpart Miguel Cardoso was happy his team — made to struggle by Arrows — ground out a result with a performance that was “very committed and very solid”.

Cardoso was asked about the absence of two major injured Bafana Bafana stars, Downs captain and goalkeeper Ronwen Williams (back muscle) and midfield kingpin Teboho Mokoena (knee ligament), ahead of their big CAF Super Cup clash against USM Alger at Loftus on Sunday (3pm).

“It’s very difficult to say,” he said. “Look, we cannot risk half a player.

“Let’s see how things progress and obviously we would like to have them ready for the biggest matches.

"We have players who are also doing well in those positions and who we trust.

“We had a big setback with Teboho, as you understood publicly — he did not come back from the national in even close to good condition; he came injured.

"And it was very important we could play him in that MTN8 final [where Downs beat Orlando Pirates].

“But then it was very unfortunate, he was just standing on that leg and had a contact.

“Let’s see. A lot of work has been done on him. We saw him smiling and dancing with the team on the pitch [after Tuesday’s win].

“Ronza’ [Williams] is the same process. It’s not a big injury, it’s a pathology [medical issue].

"He has been struggling and we have been trying our best to have him in proper condition.

"I think in the end everything will be OK.”