So what do you make of Kaizer Chiefs’ start to the 2022-2023 DStv Premiership season? It’s a question I have been asked a few times already, despite only two rounds of league matches having been played.
Well, I would say it’s always premature to draw conclusions on so little action, though I have to admit there are some promising signs. What I like is that new Chiefs coach Arthur Zwane is consistent in warning Amakhosi supporters that his project is still in its infancy and will take time before it comes to fruition.
The problem though, with football, especially with big clubs like Chiefs, is that you’re expected to hit the ground running. You may be rebuilding but deep down the fans and management expect instant results and the more you lose, the more they run out of patience. And it doesn’t matter who is in charge, people backing the club will always show their emotions.
Chiefs will face their real test on Saturday when they visit perennial champions Mamelodi Sundowns at Loftus Versfeld Stadium. But even after Saturday’s match it will still be too early to give a proper assessment of what Zwane is doing with this team.
Amakhosi started with an undeserved 1-0 loss away to Royal AM in Durban on Saturday and Zwane was right in saying, after their 3-0 victory over Maritzburg United at home on Tuesday night, that they actually played better in the first match than in the one they won.
That’s football. Sometimes the team that plays better football doesn’t necessarily win. Football is one sport that produce an outcome like that. You can have 30% possession and one chance in the whole game and still win against a team that had more than a dozen clear-cut chances.
Zwane is also keeping his promise to mix the young players from the club’s development structures with the established ones.
What is clear, is that Zwane wants his team to play attractive football. He wants his team to boss the game, be patient in their build up and be clinical when they get chances.
Chiefs might have won comfortably against Maritzburg but their fans will do well to recognise that their first two goals were as a result of poor mistakes by their visitors.
What we can give Zwane and his team credit for, is that they pressurised Maritzburg to commit the errors. So it’s credit to Chiefs because if they didn’t apply the pressure they never would have got those goals.
The third goal, scored by 18-year-old substitute Mduduzi Shabalala, in referee’s optional time, was clearly something that Chiefs can claim as their own creation. In that goal you can see Zwane’s imprint and touch in encouraging his players to be unafraid to move the ball forward with greater purpose and speed and, more importantly, take their chance.
Zwane is also keeping his promise to mix young players from the club’s development structures with the established ones.
A player like Shabalala would not have seen the few minutes he got against Maritzburg if the likes of Stuart Baxter or Ernst Middendorp were still sitting on the Chiefs bench. They didn’t hide their fears of using untested young players while they were in charge at Chiefs. But with Zwane, who worked with the likes of Shabalala, Nkosingiphile Ngcobo and Happy Mashiane in the club’s development wing, that’s never going to be an issue because he knows what these young guns are capable of.
Saturday’s match will, however, demand that Zwane’s team correct some of the mistakes they may have got away with in the past two matches against Maritzburg and Royal. One of those is the cheap way in which they lost possession in critical areas where new players like midfielders Siyethemba Sithebe and Yusuf Maart are operating.
Maart and Sithebe have impressed alongside other new players, striker Ashley du Preez and defender Zitha Kwinika. It shows that these are the players Zwane recommended that the club get for him. But as I said earlier, you can’t judge or make a proper assessment from two games.
Sundowns, who’ve won the Premiership in the past five seasons, will be a different kettle of fish for Chiefs. They’ll punish them for mistakes they may make in their own half. But what will be good for Zwane is that they’ll get this test early in the season and it may help him gauge where they are insofar as catching up with Sundowns goes.
Should Chiefs fans expect Zwane’s team to challenge for league honours? Well, it wouldn’t be recommendable to have those lofty ambitions at this stage. Maybe expecting Chiefs to at least challenge for one of the two domestic cup competitions is a more realistic target.
What Zwane has done well is to try to align his strike force of Keagan Dolly, Du Preez and Khama Billiat with his midfielders. There seems to be better cohesion and Billiat, even though he’s yet to score, seems to be playing a bigger role in drawing people to him, while freeing others to take chances.
Maart, the man-of-the-match in Tuesday’s game, could be a vital player for Chiefs this season. He seems to read many situations well and his high press in Chiefs’ second goal was impressive for a deep-playing midfielder.
What may present problems for Zwane, as games come thick and fast, is the depth in his squad — something that his counterparts at Sundowns, Manqoba Mngqithi and Rulani Mokwena, don’t have to worry about.
I shudder to think what Chiefs will do if Du Preez and Billiat, their prime attackers, are out injured. As much as Chiefs want strikers who can play the ball like Billiat and Du Preez, Zwane may still need one or two outright strikers — people who will just be there in the box to push the ball in when teams have figured out their game plan.
But as I say, the Sundowns match on Saturday will be Chiefs’ biggest test. It will be the match that will gauge where Amakhosi could go with Zwane.
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