Chiefs lost, so what’s next now? Baxter explains

There could be major changes in the Kaizer Chiefs playing personnel in the next few days after the Naturena side lost the Caf Champions League final to Al Ahly on Saturday.

Some of the Amakhosi players, including captain Bernard Parker had been given one month contract extensions with talks on further extensions expected to start next week.

Amakhosi coach, Stuart Baxter was coy in answering the question around the rebuilding of the team ahead of the new season. He said the limited time from now to the start of the season in early August makes things a little difficult.

“We have to do a proper debrief of the game,” he said on what is to happen in the next few days. “The players will have to do an individual debrief of their whole journey, and we have to look at where we are. Where are we deficient? What is the reason that the team could not win tonight (on Saturday) and why the team could only scrape into the top eight (last season)? Where are we lacking? The problem we have is that we don’t have time to prepare, even if we get new players.

“It is a bit of a conundrum for us now… how many players do we bring in? How quickly can you do it? How much time do you have to make them into a fighting unit? This is, as we have seen in the cup results, going to be a work in progress for a while. We need to get back to the drawing board, take heart in that we did well in Caf, but realise there is a little bit to go because there is a gap between absolute top and where we are right now.”

Baxter also had a message for the Amakhosi supporters and South African in general: “I hope they have enjoyed the boys getting where they are. One of the positive things is that when you get to a final, you allow people to hope and have dreams…

“For our supporters, I hope they can see this is a work in progress now and we are pushing in the right direction. And how quickly we can get there depends on a lot of things, not least that we all stick together and the supporters feel motivated by this and get behind the boys. We will make a feast of it in the season to come.”