Kaizer Chiefs head coach Arthur Zwane says they have been working on the mentality of the new-look squad with pressure at an all-time high for success at the Soweto giants.
Zwane has been tasked to rebuild the fortunes of Amakhosi and reinstall the culture that has been lost over the last decade with aesthetically pleasing football for the fans.
While he comes into job with inexperience at coaching at senior level, his time as a player and a coach in the development ranks has seen him touted as one to lead the club to glory.
But with several new players coming in and some experienced players who’ve not won a trophy for the club yet, there’s room for anxiety and pressure to creep in, which he admits they are working hard to address before it becomes an issue.
“We’ve done a lot of inductions, a lot of one v one discussions with players, trying to help them to settle in quickly, especially those who are new to the set-up and we obviously have players who’ve been part and parcel of the club,” Zwane said at the PSL Offices ahead of the MTN8 quarter-final against Stellenbosch on Sunday.
“Even those players, they’ve been part of the team when we haven’t been winning, so you want to change the mentality of just understanding not winning games or cups. So we’re trying to help them see where they are. And they must also have individual goals along with the collective goals as a club in terms of reaching where we want to.
“At the end of the day, some will respond quicker, some will take time, and some when the going gets tough, will want to hide. Some, you think maybe they are good enough to be here and when we find ourselves in this situation where they fake injuries…
“It’s not for the first time, it happened before, many many years [ago] even when I was a player, good players will come to Chiefs and fake injuries, some will choose games, so that’s the mentality we’ll try to do away with.”
He continued: “So far I think we’ve assembled a very good of young players and senior players, we’ve got the balance in it. The only thing we have to do is make sure we do things the right way to help each and every player part of this team.
“And as I said, the boys have responded positively, we’re not gonna start shaking and losing the focus because of the results. The results will come, it will come very soon.”
