OPINION: Who’s to blame for Kaizer Chiefs’ jittery defence, if not Gavin Hunt
The makeshift defence that Hunt often use is the reason why Chiefs are struggling this season.
Gavin Hunt, head coach of Kaizer Chiefs. (Picture: Samuel Shivambu/BackpagePix)
Following Kaizer Chiefs’ loss to bottom-placed Black Leopards on Wednesday, coach Gavin Hunt highlighted defensive errors as the reason for their 10th loss of the season.
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“Defending again, two incidents where we should have done better…No excuses (about travelling to Tanzania for the Caf Champions League clash against Simba SC), we had enough couple of days, no excuse for that,” said Hunt after his side allowed Leopards to come from behind to beat Chiefs 2-1 at Thohoyandou Stadium on Wednesday.
It was not the first time that Hunt has blamed defensive errors after his team lost the game.
What Hunt has often fails to mention in his post-match interviews is the fact that he often uses Siyabonga Ngezana as a makeshift right back even when he has natural right backs like Ramahlwe Mphahlele and Reeve Frosler available, as it was the case on Wednesday.
Ngezana was found wanting again on Wednesday as Leopards overloaded the left side of their attack and both Lidoda Duvha goals came from the right side of the Chiefs defence.
For the first goal, Ngezana was out of position, forcing Mathoho to cover for him and thereby making it easy for Tiklas Thutlwa to tap him after a cross from the right. And for the second goal, Ngezana allowed the cross to come in and Thutlwa completed his brace from the resultant cross.
Everyone knows, I’m sure the opposition teams also know that Ngezana is the weakest link in the Chiefs defence. Yeah, he does have a good game now and then in that right back position, but that often happens when the opposition teams don’t have quick wingers.
Don’t get me wrong, Ngezana is a very good defender, but he is not a right back, he is a centre back. He is unfortunate that he is played out of position by Hunt.
Could it be that Hunt has a problem with Frosler, after all there were rumours that the reason why the defender left Bidvest Wits was because they he and Hunt were not seeing eye to eye, I guess we will never know.
But what we know is that the makeshift defence that Hunt often use is the reason why Chiefs are struggling this season. After all statistics show that only TS Galaxy have not scored against Chiefs this season, with their first round game finishing in a 0-0 draw in November. Chiefs play Galaxy in their last game, who knows, maybe they’ll score against Chiefs too!
