Middendorp has himself to blame for Chiefs’ implosion

For a brief four days in December, Kaizer Chiefs held a 13point lead over Mamelodi Sundowns as the 2019/2020 Absa Premiership title race approached the halfway stage.

On Friday December 6, Chiefs were flying high from 10 wins from their first 12 matches to sit top with 31 points, 10 points clear of second-placed SuperSport United (21 points from 13 games) and third-placed Sundowns (21 from 11).

On Saturday December 7, Samir Nurkovic’s hat-trick spurred Chiefs to a thrilling 5-3 win against Bloemfontein Celtic at Moses Mabhida Stadium.

Amakhosi had found a genuine goalscorer, and coach Ernst Middendorp’s unheralded signings were turning out to be intelligent.

The nightmare of the previous season where Giovanni Solinas’s early muddled tenure gave way to early promise from Middendorp, but which ultimately deflated into a ninthplaced league finish and, worse, the 1-0 humiliation to First Division TS Galaxy in the Nedbank Cup final, was over.

With Sundowns not in action again until they beat Stellenbosch FC 3-1 on Wednesday, December 11, the 13-point lead lasted four days.

Still, such a lead seemed too much even for Pitso Mosimane’s defending champion trophy machine to reel in.

Amakhosi looked unstoppable for a title in their 50th anniversary season.

A 1-1 draw away to Maritzburg United in Chiefs’ final game before the PSL’s midseason recess saw the lead whittled to seven points.

Pundits pointed out that with the Chiefs squad’s lack of experience closing on trophies, Amakhosi would need to preserve a buffer to clinch the title.

A blow-for-blow finish would surely favour the Brazilians.

Middendorp scoffed at the suggestion. Scoffing is one of the coach’s unattractive personality traits. It belies a weakness at being capable of absorbing suggestions. It suggests insecurity in confidence in one’s abilities.

He is spoken of as technically sound by most of the players who have served under him.

It is when Middendorp’s stubbornness, inflexibility, poor man-management and insecurity leads to fights with senior players that the train begins to derail.

Indications were that Middendorp was fighting with senior players during the biobubble, in the crucial death part of the season.

Middendorp’s angry body language and foul mood — picking fights with journalists in Facebook messages, accusing his own media staff of being in cahoots with the press when they asked tough questions, and refusing to attend the postmatch press conference after Chiefs’ 1-0 loss to Bidvest Wits — seemed a giveaway.

Itumeleng Khune was not even on the bench for the first six matches of the bubble and no-one at Chiefs would explain why.

Willard Katsande was regularly substituted off after making a single error in a match.

The best attacker in the PSL on form, Khama Billiat’s bizarre three-week “rest” after Christmas turned into six weeks, and he came back rusty more than refreshed.

Among this man-management messiness, Middendorp’s selections in the bubble, even in the context of the need for rotation, were strange.

So, ultimately, after Chiefs capitulated meekly on the final day to a 1-1 draw against Baroka FC, what should the postmortem be on Middendorp in 2019/2020?

Simply, yes, the coach deserves credit for his effective, awkward gameplan, with a squad nowhere near Sundowns’ class to have raced out of the gates in the first half of the season.

He is not the palooka — well, not technically at any rate — he has often been unfairly portrayed as. But he deserves all criticism for undoing all that good work.

And ultimately, he has to shoulder the blame for Chiefs’ failure to secure a league title in their half-century season.