‘We’re on the right track and it’s not bad at all’: Kaizer Chiefs coach Zwane

Kaizer Chiefs coach Arthur Zwane is far from throwing in the towel after an unconvincing start to the season that has seen Amakhosi lose all three of their DStv Premiership games away from home, including a 2-0 defeat to Cape Town City on Tuesday.

With Chiefs now focusing on their MTN8 quarterfinal against Stellenbosch FC, also in Cape Town, on Sunday, Zwane who is under pressure to end Chiefs’ unprecedented seven-year trophy drought, cautioned against taking shortcuts to win a cup and not building for the future.

“As much as we want to win as a club, if we’re to take short cuts because we only think about winning now, that might take us in the wrong direction,” said Zwane, who has overseen two home wins in five matches in the league.

“Yes, we want to win the cup but we want to win playing the way we want to play because it has to be sustainable as well.

“We’re thinking about the future of this club and not just to go and win the cup and then find that we’re struggling. We need to get things going and do it the right way.”

Despite fans starting to criticise his team for poor performances that have seen Chiefs lose 1-0 to Royal AM in their opening league fixture and 4-0 to Mamelodi Sundowns, Zwane maintained that things are not as bad as they look and he’s positive about where the club is going.

“So far so good,” said Zwane, “We’re on the right track and it’s not bad at all. It’s just that, yes, the results are not coming the way we’d like.

“But it’s just a setback and we learn in all these games and we’ll get better and better until we get everyone available. That will create competition that we don’t have at the moment.”

Zwane said he hopes winger Ashley du Preez, who Chiefs signed from Stellenbosch ahead of the start of the season, will be available for Sunday’s cup match. Du Preez limped off injured in Chiefs’ defeat against Sundowns two weeks ago.

“I’m not sure whether he [Du Preez] is going to be available but we are hoping when we arrive home [on Wednesday] we’ll get good news from our medical team.

“But we’re not going to throw him in because we might hurt him again. We’ll try to be cautious because as much as we want to win the MTN8, we don’t want to lose our key players because of one game.

“There’s a lot at stake and too many games to play. We’ll see how we manage him and other players who are having niggling injuries.”