Hunt hopes ‘mentally fatigued’ Chiefs have turned the corner

Kaizer Chiefs coach, Gavin Hunt says he can now see the light at the end of the tunnel and is hopeful his team has turned the corner and can now fight for results.

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He said this after guiding the side to a good win over Wydad Athletic in a Caf Champions League fixture at the weekend, where they had to dig deep into their reserves to get out with the full points.

“If you go back to the start of the season, that’s been my prime focus,” said Hunt of his team’s mentality and attitude.

Amakhosi were reduced to 10 men in the first half, and later to nine – goalkeeper Daniel Akpeyi and striker Samir Nurkovic were sent off – but managed to get a goal and win the match, keeping their chances of advancing to the knockout stages alive.

“I think mentality is a very important aspect. The team that I took over was mentally fatigued after what happened last season [Chiefs lost the league title to Mamelodi Sundowns on the last day of the season). I think there was a meltdown and they needed to have some time away from football which we couldn’t have.

“If you understand football, you’ll know that sometimes less is better and we really need less (football activity) at the moment. A few days…to not go to training and just get away from football would do us good… slowly but surely I’m seeing a turnaround in the team and that’s important.”

Hunt next assignment in the continental showpiece is a trip away to Guinea where they will need to get a scoring draw or win to advance to the quarterfinals. The former Bidvest Wits mentor is not too worried, saying he went there last year and knows what to expect.

“I went there last year (with Wits)… we are going to have a similar situation that we had (against Wydad on Saturday). It’s not going to be different. We should have beaten Horoya here, we scored twice – one was offside yes, but the other definitely not.

“We went away to Wydad and you should have seen the situation there. I am just baffled… no, I don’t want to go there. We have been doing it for the past years and we know what to expect, and we will go there and give it a go,” said Hunt.

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