Last season was a rollercoaster ride for Pirates.
There were various reasons for the wild ride.

A thread

The main ones being the ideology of the team and the lack of a solid spine.

I previously touched on the ideology here during the previous season... https://twitter.com/thatishi/status/1061546514223456256?s=20

The weak spine was critical to the failure(struggles) in fully adapting to the Rulani inspired game model. Mokwena wanted to play a fluid system devoid of a traditional DM, with Nyatama playing as a DLP. This worked in helping Pirates retain possession, but there was no balance.

1 win in the first 7 league games pointed to the struggles. Micho quit after the 3rd game where Supersport humbled Pirates.
This brought the Rulani era.
This saw Pirates try to fully play juego de posicion. The results were not great. Rulani only won of 2 his first 10 games.

Rulani fully embraced playing a midfield 2 or 3 with Nyatama a constant alongside CMs who are not specilalist DMs like Mlambo and Makaringe. Motshwari was mostly benched.
With the Supersport result still fresh in the minds, midfield solidity was the order of the day.

Even though the chosen CMs were not specialist DMs, the brief seemed to be compactness and ball retention. This solidified the defense, but the attack suffered. Pirates only scored 3 goals in Rulani's 1st 5 games.
This sequence would lead to an extreme change in the coming games.

Against Wits, a midfield trio of Nyatama as the DLP and Makaringe and Mlambo in front of him were much more adventurous. This lead to them scoring 3 goals, but the lack of protection for the defence saw Wits score 4. The shocking thing about this game was the number of attacks...

...that Wits launched through the middle, and found acres of space. Wits looked like scoring with each attack. Pirates also looked dangerous when going forward. Both teams seemed to instruct their CMs to only worry about attacking.

This gung ho approach continued in the next Pirates game against Cape Town City. The same midfield played together and the instructions seemed to be to go for it. Only poor finishing on both sides saw the game end 3-3.
Things had to change after conceding 7 goals in 2 games.

This saw another extreme swing to caution for the next three games. Mlambo was dropped as Mokwena adapted a conservative 4-4-2. This saw the defense gets better protection, but with it struggles for goals returned. 2 goals were scored and 2 conceded as Pirates won, lost and drew.

This pattern would characterize the Rulani era at Pirates. Besides only winning 4 out of 15 games in charge, the biggest problem was failure to find defensive and attacking balance during games. His Pirates teams were either too cautious or too offensive, and therefore too open.

The reason for this was not having a specialist DM in the team when the system often isolated the one player remaining behind in the midfield 3 or 2. A specialist DM would still cope with counters by anticipating danger, fouling tactically were necessary or redirecting...

...the action to the wide areas to avoid direct attacks through the middle.
In most games, there was no player capable of doing this. This necessitated conservatism from the rest of the midfield (which inevitably led to a lack of goals).
This led to Rulani being sacked/demoted.

The Jozef Zinnbauer era began brightly with 6 wins in 7 league games. The team was free scoring too with 13 goals scored (16 including the Cup game) and a very decent 5 (8) conceded. At this stage there was still no clear identity other than trying to get the organisation right.

The 1-0 loss to Chiefs and goalless draw with Arrows before the lockdown were major setbacks. But this was still a very decent first 10 games for JZ (W-6, D-3, L-1). Contrasted with Rulani's 4 wins in 15 games, there was definite improvement both offensively and defensively.

Pirates defensive solidly can be attributed to one main reason: Ben Motshwari.
Perhaps the most polarising player in the Pirates midfield, but he was critical to what JZ was trying to do. Gone were the days of a fancy DLP. Motshwari's role was simply to protect the defense.

To underline the importance of Motshwari to Pirates, the only game in which Pirates conceded more than 1 goal in a game (3-3 v Wits in Nedbank Cup), Motshwari did not play. In a team filled with B2Bs and AMs, he was the one player with the tactical acumen to protect the defense.

Even during the lockdown struggles, it was mainly on the offensive front that Pirates were struggling, but defensively they were sound. Gabadinho Mhango's loss of form in front of goals was a major contributing factor to the lack of goals. He wasn't just not scoring, but he...

...was missing some glorious chances. Pirates did not win any of their 1st 4 games in the bubble, and their struggles were mainly in the forward line. There was just too much over-reliance on Mhango and not enough contributions from the likes of Pule and Lorch.

The offense got better in the last 3 games, and Mhango regained his scoring touch to help Pirstes win their last 3 games and finish 3rd, only 5 points behind Chiefs. JZ had finally sorted the midfield conundrum by trusting Motshwari to be the anchor in the midfield.

This allowed Makaringe, Mlambo and Ndlovu more freedom to join in attack as his midfield partners. With a more potent strikeforce in the 1st 4 games of the bubble, Pirates could have seriously challenged for the title, and this was down to the organisation instilled in the team.

The kind of football JZ wants to play will not always endear him to the Ghost. Instead of a breathless brand of football characterized by chaos and a gung ho style, Pirates are measured and compact in the defensive phase, and try to use the offensive midfielders and forwards...

...to try to create numerical and qualitative superiority (borrowed). This measured approach characterized by Motshwari playing very conservatively has seen him get a lot of criticism from fans who see his minimalist approach as not contributing to the team.

As mentioned in the thread above, Pirates fans lust for all-action players. That all-action style led to multiple games were Pirates conceded 3 goals in a game. Exciting, but not the kind of football to win titles.
Clearly, JZ also doesn't subscribe to ATTACK ATTACK football.

The challenge for JZ in the new season will be to continue with the defensive stability. This should not be difficult as the addition of Ofori and Hlatswayo will be a big upgrade on a spine that conceded 8 goals in 16 league games (11 in 17 games overall) under him.

The bigger challenge will be getting consistency from his attacking midfielders and forwards. With such a strong defensive unit, Pirates will not need more than 1 goal often in order to win games. This will make them very worthy contenders for the title.

The question is whether the fans will accept this measured approach or demand that the ghost be unleashed on the opposition. (The continued absence of fans in stadia will benefit Pirates more than most big teams in this regard).

Pirates are primed to take advantage of Pitso's exit at Sundowns, and Chiefs (if ban is upheld) inability to bolster their team for the new season.
Whisper it from under your breath, but this sanitised version of Pirates are the favourites for the title this season.