Pirates surely the favourites to win Soweto Derby

Highlands are not a team that play from the defence to the midfield to the final third too much, they were able to play those long balls more into space for Peter Shalulile to run into. The small pitch also suited Highlands. Chiefs do try and thread their passes together, it makes them dangerous, as much as they also have the diagonal balls to Samir Nurkovic or Leonardo Castro, they are also prepared to attack through the middle of the park, so the weather and pitch conditions didn’t do them any favours.

Having said all of that, Chiefs do not have the same form this year that they did last year, at the start of the season they were up against Highlands Park in Tembisa and still won 3-2, the pressure is now starting to affect Chiefs.

If you take current form into account, Orlando Pirates are now the favourites to win Saturday’s Soweto derby, and if you look at the two teams individually, Pirates are also the side with no pressure. Pirates were never really chasing the league title after the bad start to the season they had, they can just go to FNB Stadium and enjoy the moment. If they win or they don’t, they have still turned a corner under Josef Zinnbauer.

When you go into a game with less pressure on you, you tend to perform better. The pressure has really been turned up on Chiefs and they need to show the character that they showed in the first half of the season if it is not to really derail them.

For me, a turning point for Chiefs was that lapse of concentration for about four minutes at home to Maritzburg United, when they went 2-0 down, they should have been two or three goals up and then they lost, then they went into the cup, and lost, and now they play Pirates. It goes back to that four minutes. I don’t think this derby day could have played out any better for the neutral. You don’t want Chiefs running away with the league, and now Pirates are in form, you can see Chiefs losing their grip on their lead and a confident, free-flowing Pirates coming to the derby.

If I was coaching Kaizer Chiefs, it is a difficult situation, to decide whether to play Itumeleng Khune or Daniel Akpeyi against Pirates. I am attached to the team, and have seen Khune at his best, so my mind tells me Khune should be in goal, because of the magnitude of this game. But if you want to be fair and you want to win the league, Akpeyi has to be between the sticks. You can’t look at one blooper against Maritzburg and judge Akpeyi on that, he deserves to be the number one over the whole season.

With Ernst Middendorp’s psyche, and fan pressure to pick Khune, I never played for him, but I have spoken to many players who worked with him and I think I understand him. Middendorp’s job is to win the league, and he is not going to be fazed by crowd pressure, I think he will make his own decision and stick with Akpeyi and plan to win the league.

If he wins the league he is not going to worry about fans’ reaction to a player’s performances. When Chiefs play Pirates, the pressure is standard, when Akpeyi signed for Chiefs he knew what he was getting into. He is an international goalkeeper, let him do his job.

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