AmaZulu coach Romain Folz has opened up on the recent changes at Usuthu, insisting not everything the club did this campaign so far has been “trash”.
Folz said losing games is a world phenomenon, but they need to cut the mistakes they made in those games and promised a strong finish of his side in the next seven matches.
Usuthu, after losing 2-0 to the energised side of Stellenbosch before the FIFA World Cup break, dropped to the 10th on the DStv Premiership table with 28 points after 23 matches.
Before that, they were stunned by lower division side Dondol Stars in the Nedbank Cup last 16 at FNB Stadium, losing on penalties despite having taken the lead.
That means the former Marumo Gallants coach has won just one of the five matches in charge since AmaZulu management gave him a fresh three-year deal last month, with Usuthu president Sandile Zungu saying the coach was wanted elsewhere and he had no choice but to hand him a new contract.
Folz and the club management have since wielded the axe on Keagan Buchanan and Ramahlwe Mphahlele, who were released with immediate effect, while Lehlohonolo Majoro was given a lifeline until the end of the season.
Although wins are hard to come by, Folz insisted AmaZulu are not playing as badly as people make it out to be.
“It’s not desperate [to bounce back], we have to win because it’s the nature of the game – you have to win,” Folz said.
“You can make mistakes, you can have moments a little bit more difficult, it happens to any team anywhere in the world.
“The question is, how do you bounce back, how are you able to fix what went wrong and I’m positive that we are able to identify the problems we need to fix. We are in the process of fixing them, there are a lot of points that we need to understand and rectify.
“I strongly believe that there is going to be huge changes going in the last seven games of the season based on what you saw in the last two matches.
“We are not putting things in the trash as well, there are a lot of good things we did before – they were some good games for us leading to good results prior to those games.”
Folz also insisted the club will not make emotional decisions and instead analyse results with a clam head.
“So you don’t put things in the trash. If you analyse things based on emotions and start to panic, it’s always going to be detrimental to what you want to achieve,” he added.
“We look at things with a cool head, analyse what we are going to identify, able to identify what needs to be rectified and we have been able to do that.”
Usuthu will hope those changes will bear fruit when they host Swallows FC at Moses Mabhida Stadium on Saturday (20:00).
