After admitting to struggling in his debut season as Kaizer Chiefs coach, Arthur Zwane has backed himself to do better next season.
Zwane, who took over the reins at Amakhosi last year, had one of the toughest jobs in sports, steering the ship at the biggest sporting franchise in the country. The season began with promise but inconsistency in performances resulted in form fluctuating.
The former Chiefs winger guided the club to a fifth-place finish in the league and exited the MTN8 and Nedbank Cup in the last four. Their season concluded with a 0 -1 defeat to Cape Town City at the weekend at Soccer City, with Mduduzi Mdantsane scoring the goal for City. It was Chiefs' fourth loss on the troth as they ended with 12 defeats out of 30 games.
During the post-match press conference, Zwane was asked if he would still be in the hot seat at the start of the new campaign after underdelivering this season.
“I’m a believer and a hard worker, if there’s one thing that the game taught me, is never be in it if you don’t have a big heart,” Zwane told the media.
“In football, you need to develop a thick skin, I’m not the first one to be in this situation, I have seen coaches struggling in their first season and doing better in the next season. It was more of a learning season for me,” he said.
Meanwhile, Eric Tinkler’s Citizens managed to clinch a fourth-place finish with 45 points. Big transfer movements are expected at Cape Town City in the off-season. Tinkler says decisions on the futures of some of their players, including Mdantsane, have already been made.
“With regards to Mdantsane, the announcement will be made at the right time,” Tinkler said.
“We’ll start looking at players right at the beginning of the season. We have already made decisions on what our squad will be in the next season.There will be some new faces coming in that we will announce at the right time, and there will be some players that will be leaving us. Those decisions were taken a long time ago,” he said.
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