With Kaizer Chiefs desperately needing to turn the tide, club head coach Arthur Zwane revealed why he dropped the duo of Itumeleng Khune and Zitha Kwinika for the crucial clash against Royal AM.
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Chiefs gave a spirited performance in Polokwane, their home base for their next two home games, to pick up their first win against the KwaZulu-Natal outfit and collect their first three points of the season.
Eyebrows were raised when regulars Khune and Kwinika were dropped to the bench in favour of Brandon Petersen and Siyabonga Ngezana.
It appeared that the shake-up worked for Zwane and co. as Chiefs managed to keep a clean sheet, something they haven’t managed in 2023. After the match, ‘10111’ opened up on his decision to drop the experienced duo.
“When it comes to Itu and Kwinika, we’ve been playing very well. Unfortunately, when you look at the goals we’ve conceded, [it was] individual errors, not team mistakes and those things happen but we had to make changes here and there because we have a very big squad. And we have to give other players the opportunities as well, to showcase their talent and they responded positively, b. But, you look at this game and many other games, the performance is the same, the only difference is the scoreline. We managed to take our chances. It's not that they performed badly,” Zwane told journalists after the game.
Young Mduduzi Shabalala was another of Zwane’s changes to the matchday squad, replacing the inured Nkosingiphile Ngcobo on the day.
“If you look at Mduduzi, we missed Nkosingiphile Ngcobo due to injury and we decided to start with Mduduzi, same with Sithebe. We are creating that competition where everyone will show that hunger and compete, so far all of them have responded positively,” he said.
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