Zwane laments not giving Kaizer Motaung win on birthday eve

Kaizer Chiefs coach Arthur Zwane was left disappointed that his team could not give the club chairman a gift of three points on his birthday at the weekend. 

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Zwane’s side suffered a 2-1 defeat to Chippa United in a DStv Premiership match at Durban’s Moses Mabhida Stadium on Saturday. 

Kaizer Motaung celebrated his birthday a day later on Sunday where he turned 78. Zwane told the media after the game that he was left disappointed.

“I am more than just disappointed. In terms of the results, yes, I think this could have been a very good present for the chairman, especially playing at home,” Zwane told reporters after the match.

“We were on a roll in terms of not losing games at home. That’s another thing that makes me disappointed.

“We could have easily given the chairman a good present. I hate to lose, especially games like these where at some point we had control of the game. 

“We only have ourselves to blame. Those goals (scored by Chippa) were actually manna from heaven. We actually beat ourselves today,” added Zwane. 

Zwane also felt that his team were not sharp up front on the day as they could have easily come back to win the match even after conceding the second goal. 

“We had four proper chances after they scored their second. There were one-v-one situations,” said Zwane. 

“We should have buried those chances and won the game. Keagan Dolly, Caleb (Bimenyimana) and Reeve (Frosler) could have won the game for us.” 

His counterpart Morgan Mammila meanwhile says he knew how they could hurt Chiefs using their pace and short passes to frustrate them. 

“We took them pound-for-pound,” said Mammila. “And my players responded accordingly to the way we wanted to play. 

“We knew they would be much fitter than us as they had been active while he had not played in a while.

“This meant we had to keep them busy the whole game. And that is exactly what we did. We made them run from the first whistle and they cracked numerous times. 

“We controlled the tempo of the game by starting slow, then gradually increasing the speed… Reduce it again and take it up a notch again,” said Mammila.