Posted in News, Team News on Feb 20, 2021.
Amakhosi will come up against Hunt’s former team SuperSport at FNB Stadium this afternoon and the Amakhosi coach is optimistic that Chiefs will fare better than they did in their last outing in midweek against AmaZulu.
Speaking about Chiefs last league game against Usuthu, a pensive Hunt commented: “it was well documented that we were really disappointed to lose against AmaZulu. We made two costly errors but otherwise there was nothing in the game and we should have done better.”
The Chiefs coach has been working hard with his team to ensure they do not have a duplication of the result that they had in the previous game, as they have been looking to correct their recent wrongs at training.
“We have been facing challenge defensively,” he admits. “But we are doing a lot of work on the training ground and a lot of analysis. It’s just been individual errors and a number of injuries, but we need to start doing better.”
While Hunt toils on the training ground with his charges, he has been keeping an eye on his next opponents SuperSport - A team he led to three league titles between 2008 and 2010.
“Our next game is against SuperSport and if anybody watched our first-round game, I believe we should have won that game comfortably,” he reflects. “We made errors and gave a goal away just before half time. But all that is water under the bridge as we have another tough game this afternoon against a club I know very well, with a mixture of youth and experience.”
Hunt is realistic about the challenge Chiefs will face when they host second placed SuperSport. “We are under no illusions it will be a tough game,” he adds. “We need to get ourselves back up again and go in there with a good attitude and a good mindset.”
For the game against Matsatsantsa, Chiefs will be without the suspended duo of Siphosakhe Ntiya Ntiya and Darrel Matsheke, as well as a host of injuries including Happy Mashiane, who left the pitch early on through injury when Chiefs were last in action against AmaZulu. Of his current selection challenges, he says: “We are going to have to juggle and mix and match because of suspensions, and nobody is really back from injury. Kgotso Moleko is also missing as he has a family bereavement.”
The game will be Gavin Hunt’s 881st game as a coach in the top-flight of South African Football, which includes all competitions. No coach in the domestic game at the moment has coached as many games as he has.
Amakhosi will face Matsatsantsa a Pitori at 15:00 on Saturday at FNB Stadium. The game will be live on DStv Channel 202 and SABC 1.