Disaster. This is how some Kaizer Chiefs fans are already labelling and interpreting their club’s start to the 2022/23 campaign, where their beloved Amakhosi have lost all their three away league games while conceding seven goals without firing a reply.
Interestingly, Amakhosi’s new coach Arthur Zwane appears oblivious.
“We’re on the right track and it’s not bad at all,” was part of how Zwane reacted on Tuesday night in Cape Town after seeing his charges suffer a third successive league loss, this time against Cape Town City.
As I’ve said before, it was always going to be a baptism of fire for Zwane in his first season as head coach of any club in SA’s top flight.
Yes it’s five games into the new DStv Premiership season, but the signs, despite Zwane’s denial, are not good at all for Amakhosi. Something drastic has to happen,or this could be an embarrassing season for Kaizer Motaung’s club.
If Chiefs continue to pick up six points every five matches, they may well end the season having collected a mere 36 points out of 90. That would be 11 points shy of what they got last season when they finished fifth, 18 points behind champions Mamelodi Sundowns.
Chiefs’ problems seem to be all over the pitch.
The striking department led by Khama Billiat and Keagan Dolly is firing blanks and seems to lack a player who can finish some of the chances the team is creating.
Except for Yusuf Maart, who was suspended on Tuesday, Zwane’s midfield looks devoid of the rhythm and bite Amakhosi were renowned for in the olden days — the precision and ability to dictate a match. Yes, Chiefs’ current midfielders play, but they tend to play in patches and are never in control of proceedings.
You can go for decades without success if you keep fixing one part and leaving the rest unattended. If you don’t believe me look at Bafana Bafana’s record for the last 20 years.
Chiefs’ defence is the worst part of the puzzle, where only new signing Zitha Kwinika looks deserving of the famous black and gold jersey. It’s no wonder that in all their three league losses Chiefs have conceded early goals — Royal (1st min), Sundowns (6th min) and City (5th min).
Zwane should perhaps take some of the blame for not getting his message across as far as how he wants his team to defend. On Tuesday he started the game with three players at the back — Kwinika, Siyabonga Ngezana and Njabulo Ngcobo — but what struck me was their late reaction whenever City posed a threat.
There seemed to be no clear communication on what the fullbacks Reeve Frosler and Dillan Solomons needed to do and who to pick when the team was under siege. A lot of balls were played behind them and central defenders reacted too slowly.
That Chiefs did not go to half-time trailing 5-0 was only due to City not taking their chances. Zwane on that Chiefs bench seemed bereft of ideas on how to sort out the team’s problems.
“We’re actually looking for tactical understanding in terms of the balance at the back. There will be games where we’ll play three and others with two central defenders and then have fullbacks on the right and left,” Zwane explained after Tuesday’s tie where central defender Ngezana had another nightmare of a game.
As a way of trying to understand how Chiefs can resolve some of their problems, I asked a qualified coach not attached to a club at the moment, to tell me what’s wrong with Chiefs and how they can resolve some of their problems.
This is partly what he told me: “You can go for decades without success if you keep fixing one part and leaving the rest unattended. If you don’t believe me look at Bafana Bafana’s record for the past 20 years.”
Chiefs’ current challenges cannot be placed on Zwane’s shoulders only. They’re far deeper than that. The current problems are as a result of a lack of attention to detail by the club’s management from the time they won their last piece of silverware in May 2015 with Stuart Baxter.
For seven years Chiefs have been signing many ordinary players, resulting in the imbalance of the squad, like the one Zwane has at the moment.
It will take a serious audit on each position for Chiefs to form a team that can compete for honours in the PSL. What the Chiefs management have been doing for years and thinking they can get away with, is to sign a couple of high-profile players such as Billiat and Dolly and hope those will inspire the whole team to get the results.
It is indeed “fixing one part and leaving the rest unattended”, and the results have been there for everyone to see.
Chiefs started the current campaign without an outright striker because Zwane and those backing him were convinced that Billiat, Dolly and Ashley du Preez, attacking wingers at best, will get the goals.
The plan is not working as envisaged, but the one striker the club has signed, Bonfils-Caleb Bimenyimana from Burundi, doesn’t inspire much confidence either, as his goal-scoring record is way too low to say anything about. For me, Bimenyimana looks like another of those ordinary players Chiefs have been good at recruiting in recent times.
Zwane, though, seems to believe he’s onto something with Chiefs and it’s just a matter of time before his team clicks into gear. It’s hard to believe him, and what’s scarier is that Zwane may soon find his career veering off the wrong track before itbegins.
The Chiefs coach seems to think he has time to rebuild the team, even if it means not winning a cup or two along the way. “As much as we want to win as a club, if we’re to take shortcuts because we only think about winning now, that might take us in the wrong direction,” was Zwane’s answer when he was asked about winning the MTN8, where Chiefs play Stellenbosch FC in a quarterfinal tie in Cape Town on Sunday.
I’m afraid a loss for Zwane in Sunday’s game may signal the beginning of the end for him as a Chiefs coach, as fans, and maybe some in management, may begin to think, if they’re not already, that the job is way beyond his grade.
It would be a pity because Chiefs’ problems are far bigger than whoever is coaching the club at the moment.
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