‘Chiefs are on the right track’

Kaizer Chiefs coach Steve Komphela believes the current “Glamour Boys” failed to meet the expectations of the club as he reflected on a disastrous season.

Chiefs finished with no silverware in Komphela’s second season in charge, but the Amakhosi coach believes there were some positives.

“Promises are easy to make. However, most important is to possess the drive, energy, desire and dedication to wake up every day and keep working extremely hard and try to deliver on expectations,” he said in a review on the club’s official website.

“By Kaizer Chiefs standards, we didn’t do well and failed to meet our objectives. However, when it comes to the game model – there was an improvement in the way we played. Not winning a single trophy was definitely not good,” he said.

Chiefs finished the season on fourth place with 50 points, 10 behind eventual winners BidVest Wits. They had a terrible defensive record as they conceded 28 goals throughout the campaign.

But their second half of the season was a marked improvement compared to the first. And this, Komphela said, was something to enthuse about.

“We are on the right track, playing attractive attacking football with speed, skill, movement and lots of box entries, creating lots of chances.

“We simply need to win matches because controlling and dominating without winning affects the players’ confidence. It also makes our job as coaches very difficult,” he said.

Komphela attributed the team’s sudden drop in form to a combination of factors, like injuries and suspensions.

“As a result, the team’s performance gets affected (sic) as well. Another consideration is fatigue, either mental or physical. The most obvious was our inability to bounce back after a setback. We needed to recover faster after the penalties knockout against SuperSport United,” he said.

While the club’s leadership expressed confidence in Komphela by not showing him the door, he will go into the new season knowing that another season without a trophy will surely mean the end of his reign at Naturena.

“As usual, the answer is that we need to win matches, win trophies. We drew too many games to be in contention for the league title and we must get beyond the 60 points mark.

“We want to continue dominating and controlling games, play attractive attacking football and just take the chances we create. That’s why we are looking for a striker who can score consistently,” Komphela said.

Pressed to make any promises for next season, Komphela was philosophical in his response.

“Promises are easy to make. However, most important is to possess the drive, energy, desire and dedication to wake up every day and keep working extremely hard and try to deliver on expectations,” he said. – ANA