Defiant Solinas says he won’t go
Larsen happy to see his plan work
Giovanni Solinas offered an emphatic “No! No” when asked if he would consider quitting as Kaizer Chiefs coach following yet another listless performance at the weekend.
Chiefs lost their fourth Absa Premiership match as Golden Arrows won through first-half penalties from Limbikani Mzava who took full advantage of Amakhosi’s known defensive frailties to help his side to a 2-1 result at Princess Magogo Stadium on Saturday. Leo Castro netted Chiefs’ goal. “Sorry? No. No,” responded Solinas to reporters who had asked if he would resign. But whether the notoriously lenient Chiefs board would act to arrest a decline which is threatening to end with another trophyless season remains to be seen. Solinas again offered platitudes when asked what had gone wrong, blaming the bumpy surface and Arrows’ stoic defending for the defeat, which left Amakhosi six points behind the Premiership summit.
“We dominated the match. You saw that. How many corner kicks did they [Arrows] have? They relied on counterattacks. We don’t deserve to lose this game. But we keep [on] fighting,” said Solinas. Arrows coach Clinton Larsen did not hide the fact that his game plan was to attack on the counter. “Our plan worked well,” Larsen said.
“We exposed the spaces that their fullbacks leave. It could well have been three or four [goals] in the first-half, but we didn’t take our chances.” Larsen knew Solinas’s game plan relied on Ramahlwe Mphahlele and Godfrey Walusimbi overlapping and his instruction to Siboniso Conco, Knox Mutizwa and Lerato Lamola was clear: take advantage of the spaces they leave behind.
“Rama and Walusimbi like going forward and once they leave spaces behind, the central defenders have to fill in. I was not surprised that both [Teenage] Hadebe and Eric Mathoho committed the fouls for the penalties.”