Baxter gives a roundabout answer on Nurkovic’s role at Chiefs

Kaizer Chiefs coach Stuart Baxter was circuitous in his answer, when asked about Samir Nurkovic’s situation in the team. The Serbian striker has had a frustrating time and the goals seem to have dried up a little after he made an impressive entrance into the local game two seasons ago.

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Baxter pulled off Nurkovic in their opening DStv Premiership game on Sunday. The game against TS Galaxy ended in a goalless draw. There is a general worry that Baxter’s style of play doesn’t really suit Nurkovic, as it is not direct, which the striker prefers. Baxter said they have tried to tweak his approach a little.

“I think there is nothing wrong with his appetite. He’s desperate to do well for us,” said Baxter after Sunday’s game at Mbombela Stadium.

“I think injuries, being away and a period that he has not scored are frustrating him and he is finding it difficult to give his best. We have tweaked his position a little bit to change his angle so he does not have his back to goal as much…

“In training, he has looked very good and we have been tempted to continue with it. I just thought tonight that Keagan’s (Dolly) ability may pick the lock a little bit better than Samir’s strength.

“But as far as Samir is concerned, it is a matter of keeping on going until he cracks it. All strikers go through patches where they know they are the best but it then becomes about doing everything else like defending, linking up play… do those as best as you can until you crack it.

“It can sometimes be like a ketchup bottle, you hit it and nothing comes out but then suddenly it’s all over your plate. That’s what we are waiting for with Samir. We will give it whatever patience we can but obviously, we have a squad and we need to put the players on the field that we think will win the game,” explained Baxter.

On the game, Baxter felt the draw was a fair result as both clubs struggled to find sharpness especially going forward.

“We did not get off to a flying start. I think it was a careful start and it became a physical encounter. We got into a patch where we started to play better closer to their 18-yard area. We had more structured build-up play.

“In the second half we changed Samir for Keagan and initially that looked good. But again that faltered because of a lack of quality. I have told the players that I think this was a frustrating game in that there were a lot of missed opportunities. I don’t mean goal-scoring opportunities but game opportunities to set up attacks.

“It was either someone had too many touches or we made a poor decision and played it backwards instead of forward, or just made a technical error.

“All that added with an opponent who worked their socks off – you have to give credit to them, they wanted to win the game as well. But with an extra 10% in certain areas, we would have had a better chance of winning. We did not show the quality. Neither team did. So it was going to be either a mistake or set-piece that was going to win the game. As it stands, nil-nil is probably a fair result.”