Baxter admits Chiefs pain as fans continue to be shut out
'I think the teams who have the most fervent supporters have suffered the most,' said the Brit.
Stuart Baxter agrees with Keagan Dolly that Chiefs miss their fans. Picture: Muzi Ntombela/BackpagePix
Kaizer Chiefs coach Stuart Baxter has concurred with his midfielder Keagan Dolly that the team is suffering without their supporters to urge them on.
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Dolly said last week that the smaller teams are benefiting from the current supporter ban due to Covid-19 restrictions because they are not intimidated to play big teams anymore.
“They come to FNB and it’s empty, and they don’t feel any pressure,” said Dolly ahead of their game against Golden Arrows at the weekend. And as if to prove his point right, Arrows ran Amakhosi ragged and beat them 1-0 in their DStv Premiership fixture. After the game, Baxter was asked if he felt the same about the supporters.
“If you look globally, during the lockdowns and the empty stadiums… I think the teams who have the most fervent supporters have suffered the most,” said the Brit.
“Liverpool without their fans were a different proposition (the Reds lost a succession of home games last season). Having said that, I still think we should demand from ourselves professionalism an da professional performance to negate that.
“I don’t think we should say we are only a good team when we have our fans. We should want to play for our fans anyway. I think it is a tragedy that the fans are not at the stadium, but at the same time it is selfish of us (not to perform because they are not here) because we know we have great support.
“We should still have that motivation. He (Dolly) is right in terms of the opponents probably enjoying the game more coming to an empty FNB Stadium with a beautiful pitch and on a beautiful evening – they can play quite relaxed. But from our point of view, our performance should be better than it was tonight even without fans.”
The loss seemed to take the wind off Baxter sails with his talk of chasing Sundowns for the DStv Premiership title thrown out the window. He will, however, have a lengthy two-week break to reignite his team who just could not light up on Saturday.
This was despite good news from the South African Football Association aribtration, that declared that Chiefs should be allowed to replay the two league games they refused to play in last December, following an outbreak of Covid-19 at the Amakhosi Village
