Kaizer Chiefs co-head coach Cedric Kaze provided a voice of reason yesterday, saying he will be satisfied this season if Amakhosi can finish third in the Betway Premiership.
Motaung Jnr’s bold Chiefs claim
Chiefs sporting director Kaizer Motaung Jnr suggested last week that Chiefs have ambitions of making the Champions League, even though they have fallen well behind Orlando Pirates and Mamelodi Sundowns in the title race.
Only the top two in the Premiership will play in next season’s elite continental competition.
“If we finish third this season, I’ll leave the club happy,” Kaze told journalists in Naturena, ahead of Sunday’s Premiership clash at home to Durban City.
That would be enough to get Chiefs a return to the Caf Confederation Cup, which they played in this season, exiting in the group stages.
It is widely expected that neither Kaze nor co-head coach Khalil Ben Youssef will remain at Chiefs beyond the end of this season.
Chiefs will not be adding in this campaign to the Nedbank Cup they won last season, their first piece of silverware in a decade.
Kaze and Ben Youssef took over from Nasreddine Nabi in September, and at times it seemed like they were getting Chiefs on the right path, as they went into the New Year well in the title race.
A terrible February, however, saw them knocked out of the Nedbank Cup and Caf Confederation Cup and they have now lost their last three Premiership games on the spin.
Kaze also gave a presentation yesterday where he showed how Chiefs are topping the statistics charts in several categories.
The problem for Chiefs is that expected goals do not translate to actual goals and Chiefs have the fewest goals of any team in the current top six.
Their defence has also been unreliable of late, conceding as many goals in Chiefs’ last three Premiership games as they let in over their first 15.
McCarthy suspended
Chiefs have further defensive issues ahead of the City game, with Aden McCarthy out suspended, though Zitha Kwinika is available again after suspension.
Durban City have leapfrogged Chiefs in the table and currently sit in fourth, two points clear of Amakhosi though Chiefs do have two games in hand.
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