Baxter admits Chiefs’ poor display as they crash out of Nedbank Cup

Stuart Baxter would take a bad performance and a win any day. But on Saturday his Kaizer Chiefs team gave him only one of these –  a poor display.

READ ALSO: Another dry run looms for Chiefs as Galaxy knock them out of Nedbank Cup

Amakhosi crashed out of the Nedbank Cup with TS Galaxy claiming their scalp with a 1-0 win through Augustine Kwem’s second half strike. 

Baxter was displeased with how his team failed to come to the party and the numerous errors committed on the night at FNB Stadium. 

“To sum the game up in one point, I think we didn’t play at any time with the quality that we have. I have looked at our training during the week and it was first class. I was certain that we would give a better performance than that,” said Baxter after the game. 

“But when you play cup football you have to build momentum, you have to take initiative and have your opponent on the back foot. We made far too many technical errors to build that momentum. 

“After the first 10 minutes I thought we were on the front foot. And we played with a little structure. After that we subsided and Galaxy felt they were in the game. 

“The more mistakes we made and the more they had the ball into our last third the more they felt they could get something out of the game. 

“At no point did we play with the consistent quality that was needed and that was very disappointing. 

The Briton also explained his ‘weakened’ starting team where he didn’t have an out-and-out striker while Samir Nurkovic and Leonardo Castro have both recovered from injury and were available. 

“We didn’t start Samir, Lebza and Leo because they are off the pace in terms of their fitness. We went with a slightly tweaked formation because we wanted to get more of the in-form players on the field. Mshini had that little role in the pocket where he could drive in towards their defence from. 

“We had Siya playing at right back and could stay a little bit and let Ntiya-Ntiya kick on forward. But even our in-form players didn’t play with the quality that we know them to have and that’s why we gradually went for the changes. 

“We knew Castro and Samir could give you 30 to 40 minutes and cannot give you that yet. We tried a different shape and personnel to try and take the game back. 

“Even if we don’t play with the quality that we have, I think if you give away a terrible goal and miss some decent scoring chances… that could have easily been a bad performance, not a great day at the office but we would get through because we created a chance and we took it. 

“But once you give away that first goal in a cup you run the risk of seeing what we saw tonight… They ran the clock down, injured players, make the changes, the goalkeeper takes his time and breaks the rhythm. Basically we did not show the quality that we know we have,” said Baxter.