Africa-Press – South-Africa. Kaizer Chiefs will go to the much-anticipated Soweto derby against Orlando Pirates next Saturday having not won a league match in their last six outings after they lost 2-1 to Marumo Gallants at FNB Stadium on Saturday.
Amakhosi were looking to be on their way to breaking their winless streak in the league after taking a 12th minute lead through Glody Lilepo’s wonderful scorcher.
But indifferent defending, which has marked Chiefs’ season having come to this match having conceded 26 goals in 24 matches against the 22 they had scored, continued when they allowed Gallants defender Trevor Mathiane to cancel Lilepo’s strike five minutes before the interval.
Mathiane was given an easy route to find his goal when the Chiefs’ makeshift central defence pairing of Zitha Kwinika and Bradley Cross couldn’t react quickly enough when goalkeeper Bruce Bvuma parried Daniel Msendami’s thunderbolt shot back into the fray.
Mathiane was on hand to tap in the rebound to cut Chiefs’ lead short.
With Dillan Solomons operating as a right-back and Happy Mashiane on the left, Chiefs’ whole defence never looked stable as Msendami, Thapelo Mokobodi and Junior Dion always looked capable of scoring whenever the visitors from the Free State ventured forward.
Chiefs coach Nasrredine Nabi looked to change the outcome of this match when he substituted midfielder Thabo Cele and Solomons and brought on Nkosingiphile Ngcobo and Sibongiseni Mthethwa at the restart.
But Chiefs’ problem in the heart of the defence remained as Kwinika and Cross continued to look uncomfortable whenever Gallants found pockets of space to spray passes in between them.
Apart from Lilepo who produced a good strike to score his third goal of the season, Chiefs didn’t look sharp up front where Mduduzi Shabalala, Wandile Duba and Ashley du Preez were expected to deliver the goals.
Duba was unlucky though to see his attempted shot hit the upright in the 63rd minute after being put through by Shabalala in a rare moment in which Chiefs created something in the second half.
It was after this miss that Gallants upped the tempo and eventually found the winner through Msendami’s free kick that deceived Bvuma as a cross before it curled in, adding misery for a decent number of Amakhosi supporters who attended this match.
In the end, this match didn’t turn out to be good preparation for the two blockbuster fixtures Chiefs will play against their chief nemesis Pirates in the coming weeks.
Chiefs will first host Pirates here on Saturday before meeting the Buccaneers again on May 10 in Durban where they are expected to break a 10-year trophy drought by capturing the Nedbank Cup.
Chiefs lost 1-0 to Pirates in the corresponding league fixture in January and will need to win on Saturday if they want to boost their hopes of finishing in the top eight.
With this loss, the 11th of the season, chances of Chiefs doing better than their worst ever (10th) finish look bleak.
Chiefs have three matches, including next Saturday’s derby to win if they are to avoid ending this season among the teams fighting to avoid the promotion/relegation playoffs.
Other results on Saturday: Polokwane City 1 SuperSport United 1; Golden Arrows 0 AmaZulu 1.
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