Chiefs striker Shaun Bartlett believes that a statistic which reads that Chiefs have not been able to find a goal in the PSL in 410 minutes, is extremely worrying and that it needs to be rectified sooner rather than later.

Ironically It was Bartlett’s 40th minute equalizer against Jomo Cosmos, more than four games ago, that Chiefs last found the back of the net in a PSL game. After Sunday’s goalless draw against Platinum Stars, Chiefs woes in front of goal continued and it is not a stat that Bartlett feels a team of Chiefs calibre should be associated with.

With a busy end to October and a packed fixture programme for November, Bartlett feels Chiefs need to start turning the possession and the chances being created into goals in order to move up the log table and be taken seriously as title contenders.

The current goal drought needs to end soon and turn in a flurry of goals as Chiefs try to end the current frustration of not being able to get the ball across the line, with SuperSport United next up in The Telkom Cup and thereafter a league game against Free State Stars, the challenge does not get any easier for the men in gold and black.

Concern

With Chiefs only conceding three goals in the six league games that they have played in this season, is a sign that The Amakhosi are not being overpowered in any means by the opposition but have been the cause of their own undoing.

As they have been unable to turn opportunities created into goals, Bartlett speaking to kaizerchiefs.com on Monday said, “obviously you begin to get worried once you go so many games without a goal. As a striker I am more concerned as we have had ample opportunities to have won the games where we did not find any goals”. Commenting on Sunday’s game against Stars Bartlett said. “We had around five clear cut opportunities and they had one we did not make any of them count, at the back and in midfield we have been really solid it is up front we just have not been able to convert our opportunities”.

Time to move up

The current season has been such that no team has really been able to stamp their authority on the league thus far. With the past weekend's results seeing a number of teams who were at the top and, possibly contesting for honours later in the season, dropping points.

Gaining three would have been the perfect opportunity for Chiefs to have jumped up the table. Bartlett said of this “when other teams drop points we need to make the most of those opportunities a few weeks back Pirates lost but we were unable to capitalize on that.

This weekend both Celtic and Sundowns lost, so we needed to have beaten Stars. It really is up to us to now get things together as there is only so much the coach can do. What makes this whole thing more depressing is that we have been training really hard and when we get to the game we are a bit too over-excited perhaps we need to be a bit calmer”.

SuperSport battle

A tough game away from home against SuperSport United in the Telkom Cup ¼ Finals this weekend awaits Chiefs. such is the nature of cup competition that the form book is thrown out of the window.

Still the game against SuperSport will be a massive test for Chiefs and if they want to pass it and get to the semifinals, they will according to Bartlett need to find their scoring boots. As he explained “for us to get past SuperSport we need to score goals that is simple, we need to get our goal scoring boots sharpened up and get over them. What we need to avoid over the next few league games is dropping further points as that would leave us in the wrong end of the table, we want to avoid being there and need to get our chins up and start the fight again”.