Zwane – There Has Been A Lot Of Improvement, Check The Stats

Kaizer Chiefs head coach Arthur Zwane has insisted stats prove that there has been improvement at Amakhosi under him as head coach this season, despite the club ending another campaign without silverware.

Zwane saw his last chance of lifting a trophy in his debut campaign on the sidelines being spoilt by bitter rivals Orlando Pirates in Saturday’s 2-1 extra-time defeat in the Soweto Derby.

As a consequence, the club’s eight-year long trophy drought will continue, and Zwane insisted that, while some might season as failure, people must remember where the team has come from – arguing his side has improved compared to the previous three campaigns.

“A lot of people because of the demands of playing for this team and the expectations they’ll see us as failures and [are] forgetting where we come from,” he told journalists.

“And I take it like a man and I’m disappointed. I believe we could’ve done better. We’ve done a lot of things good when you compare to where we come from. You know, changing the squad, it was never going to be easy anyway.

“Hence I said, I’m very proud of the players. We are only left with two games and when you look at the stats, they always say ‘stats don’t lie’. Go and check the stats of Kaizer Chiefs’ past three seasons then you will see that there’s a lot of improvement in this squad compared to the previous squads that we have assembled.”

Zwane also knows that his job will now be scrutinised, if not by the club’s management, the least by Amakhosi’s faithful after he failed his mandate for the 2022/23 campaign.

“Winning cups with Kaizer Chiefs is my mandate,” he explained.

“As much as we were in a season where we obviously wanted to get things right first, bring in the right players, find a way of playing and also get the right chemistry within the team, and look at ourselves how do we move forward? How do we beef up and start challenging?

“I think going to the semi-final of MTN8 obviously gave us hope and we had the opportunity to seal again here at FNB when we’re playing 1-1.

“Even today, it’s more or less the same, semi-final, we had the opportunity to kill the game off early and it wasn’t to be. As I said, I believe going forward, we will take it one step closer and we will learn from this one.”

Chiefs turn their focus to the league where they have two games to make up a four-point gap to third-placed SuperSport United, whom they will face in a direct clash next weekend – otherwise they will miss out on CAF inter-club football altogether.