There’s been a lot humble pie for AmaZulu coach Benni McCarthy to eat in the five matches his team has played this campaign.
Maybe it’s good that this has happened at the beginning of the season, and one would hope the young coach is learning quickly.
It was always going to be a hard task for Usuthu to start the new season in the same vein they ended the previous one. Cool heads at times like these are always needed and Usuthu bosses, especially club chair Sandile Zungu, will do well not to panic. They need to stick with McCarthy and their plan.
Never one to hide his feelings when things are not going his way, McCarthy has already revealed that he was disappointed when the club was unable to get him a striker in the off-season.
Indeed, Usuthu have looked blunt upfront in their first three league matches of the DStv Premiership, where they’ve failed to score a single goal. The only goal the team has scored was in the MTN8 quarterfinal in a 2-1 loss to Cape Town City.
Lehlohonolo Majoro, Siphelele Mthembu and Bongi Ntuli are the club’s main strikers, but McCarthy feels if Usuthu were to build on their second-place finish in the Premiership last season, they should have bolstered the squad with another top marksman.
Goals win games. Beautiful football looks good and you enjoy it when you score goals, but unfortunately we can’t score and it’s a big concern for me.
— AmaZulu head coach Benni McCarthy
“It’s more than frustrating for me because that was the area (striking position) in the team where I had the biggest concern,” the former Bafana Bafana striker lamented after their 1-0 loss against Nyasa Big Bullets in the first leg of the Caf Champions League preliminary round last week.
“It’s where I had the number of targets and I wanted to strengthen the squad with somebody who wanted to score goals, a striker. I wanted someone to come here because we play some nice football. We play good football, but playing good football while you keep losing games doesn’t benefit the team.
“Goals win games. Beautiful football looks good and you enjoy it when you score goals, but unfortunately we can’t score and it’s a big concern for me,” added McCarthy.
That was a few days before Usuthu failed to score again on Tuesday when they hosted SuperSport United (0-0) in a league tie. The frustration for McCarthy reached boiling point after Tuesday’s result, but what he needs to guard against is blaming others.
After the Tuesday game McCarthy took his stress to the match officials, blasting them for their ill-handling of the match, which saw both sides finish with 10 men. It was an unnecessary outburst and the coach was barking up the wrong tree.
Clearly someone has to whisper in McCarthy’s ear and remind him that sort of reaction is never going to solve his scoring problems.
What’s encouraging is that McCarthy did correct himself after Tuesday’s 0-0 draw against SuperSport, again pointing out that his charges lack sharpness and calm in front of goal.
“We’re not scoring and it’s a big problem,” McCarthy reflected. “Like I said, my biggest quest was to sign the striker this season, which we didn’t.
“I’m not sure if it’s because of what I said publicly and now the strikers that I have are feeling that I have lost confidence in them. No, I haven’t. I have faith and all the confidence in them, but I think in all the competitions that we’re playing, we need help.
“We need an extra person, just to give us something different when we go to certain games. It’s five games now and we’ve only scored one goal.”
I do understand McCarthy’s point and it will be better if the trio try to put themselves in his shoes instead of feeling like they’re no longer needed. Majoro contributed eight goals and two assists for Usuthu in the league last season and so he can’t be useless overnight.
The player who supplied most of the passes for Majoro to score, Augustine Mulenga (11 assists), who himself scored five league goals, is out injured. And that can’t be helping the Durban club as it tries to recapture last season’s form.
It is understandable AmaZulu are suddenly struggling to find the back of the net when you also consider that Ntuli and Mthembu scored less than five league goals combined last season. They did occasionally help the team build attacks to get goals, but the reality is that their scoring form has been below par for some time.
What everyone shouldn’t lose sight of when analysing Usuthu’s struggles is that the club is rebuilding under new management. It is that management, led by Zungu, which got McCarthy and a few good players at the beginning of last season.
But Usuthu’s rebuild doesn’t end with what they managed to do then. Finishing in the top half of the log has to be something the club consistently achieves. However, they need to realise they can only remain top if they’re consistent in how they manage the squad.
McCarthy has to go back to Usuthu’s board and plead for reinforcements in the striking department in January. But while he waits it will be crucial for him to not lose focus of what the club wants to achieve on the field of play.
And that unfortunately starts with the hard task of turning last Friday’s 1-0 home loss against Big Bullets to victory this weekend in Lilongwe. It’s not going to be easy, but it will help if McCarthy keeps the players calm, while reminding them who they were and how they achieved what they did last season.
But if Usuthu were to go out in the preliminary round in their debut appearance in the Champions League, it shouldn’t be a train smash or the end of their season. They’ll have to take it as a big lesson, part of which should be to remain humble whenever they achieve what people may feel is beyond their capabilities.
And McCarthy should be the one projecting this reality, given what the club is going through at the moment. Expectations should never be blown out of proportion.
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