Johannesburg - Kaizer Chiefs head coach Arthur Zwane has revealed that he did not lose his cool as Kaizer Chiefs survived a Maritzburg United resurgence to secure a vital Premiership victory on Saturday.
Amakhosi clinched a hard fought 3-2 victory over The Team Of Choice thanks to a Yusuf Maart second half penalty and kept up their dreams of playing continental football next season.
The Glamours Boys made an explosive start to the contest in Umgugundlovu, going two goals up in the opening 10 minutes but were pegged back as the hosts fired back with two of their own, sending the match level at 2-2 at the break.
It was clear if the visitors wanted to keep their impressive winning streak going they would need to come up with a huge response of their own in the second stanza in front of a capacity crowd at Harry Gwala Stadium.
However, the leader of the pack, Zwane has revealed that the trust he has built with his players eased him going through that seemingly harsh period in the match and he in fact was convinced that his boys would find their way back into the match eventually.
“I did not panic at all to be quite honest simply because I believe in our players,” Zwane said after the match.
“I believed that as soon as we take back control of the game that we can create chances and be able to score as long as we have Christian (Basomboli) on the field, Ashley (Du Perez) on the field, Keagan and Mdu (Shabalala) ,we can always create goal scoring opportunities and be dangerous.
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“Though we could’ve done better and we obviously have room for improvement, we’ll keep on grinding the results until we get right.”
Zwane and his men have been racking up a good set of results recently and their victory against Maritzburg meant that Chiefs have won four consecutive games across all competitions for the first time since April 2017 (also 4).
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Amakhosi also completed their third double of the current campaign against Maritzburg having already done so with rivals Orlando Pirates and top flight new boys Richard’s Bay FC.
Although they remained fourth, Zwane’s men drew level on points with Pirates in third and in the process closed the gap between themselves and second-placed SuperSport United, intensifying the run-in for a CAF Champions League spot.
@ScribeSmiso
IOL Sport