Baxter explains Ngcobo’s absence in Chiefs’ dull draw with City

Nkosingiphile “Mshini” Ngcobo was a notable absentee when Kaizer Chiefs were held to a goalless dull draw by Cape Town City in a DStv Premiership match on Tuesday evening. 

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Just a few days earlier, Chiefs coach Stuart Baxter had enthused on how Ngcobo was enjoying his ‘new’ role – although he played this role last season under Gavin Hunt and Arthur Zwane – as a No. 10, finding spaces in the pockets. 

So why was Mshini left out of the game? “We changed personnel a little bit, we wanted a little bit of fresh legs. 

“Mshini has a bacterial infection so he couldn’t play. We have created a little role for Mshini because he’s been doing so well in that little No. 10 in the pocket role… we went away from that today. So, I think all in all the changes had a positive effect. But when you don’t win the game, you’re not completely happy,” explained Baxter after the match. 

Ngcobo should however be back for Amakhosi’s next match which is in over a week. The Naturena side will meet Baroka on February 26  in their next game. 

Despite failing to win the match, Baxter was happy with his team’s performance against City, saying it was an improvement from their showing against TS Galaxy last weekend. 

“The performance… I think we had good control of the game until about the last 10 or 15 minutes. And because we had control of the game we did create chances but we did not really hit the target with our finishes. We felt that we were the ones that should go on and win the game. 

“We changed shape a little after making changes but we kept pushing and left ourselves open a little bit and conceded a couple of dangerous situations where we had to defend bravely. 

“All in all I thought it was a better performance from that against Galaxy, we had a little better movement of our front three and if we got better service with the final pass we could have come out with full points.

“The fact that we didn’t means we have to accept the point and take the positives from here.”