Lamontville Golden Arrows coach Mabhuti Khenyeza appears to be drenched with pressure but insisted he doesn’t need help from an external voice.
Arrows lost their ninth game on the bounce* as they were beaten 2-1 by TS Galaxy in the Nedbank Cup Last-32 at Mpumalanga Stadium on Friday night.
The club last won a match when they beat Kaizer Chiefs at home on 28 October last year, in what was the first game of caretaker coach Cavin Johnson at the Soweto giants after they had parted ways with Molefi Ntseki.
Since then, things have gone south with losses after another, which has piled huge pressure on Khenyeza, who was one of the finest strikers in the PSL, scoring 110 goals during his playing time, leaving him as second joint-top scorer in the PSL era.
“The game is a good teacher,” replied Khenyeza when asked how to fix this slide.
“You do well at training and are convinced everything is okay but come match days [things are different]. Some other things we address at training, but we can’t get it right and we are struggling.”
The club has not helped too with plenty of key players injured. Velemseni Ndwandwe is injured along with Ismail Watenga, Thabani Zuke, Brandon Theron, and Ryan Moon.
Sicelo Hlatshwayo has been frozen out at times but also collapsed at training last year and went to the ICU before coming back. But Khenyeza said the absence of these players is not an excuse.
“I don’t even know who is out injured!” said Khenyeza.
“Because it is about the team, not on the individuals. If you focus more on the individuals, you won’t function. We trust the players and whoever gets the chance we back him up in any way.”
Khenyeza, who previously said he doesn’t believe in psychologists in football because they didn’t play the game, said he doesn’t need an external voice to uplift his team.
“This is football, footballers don’t think about church or priests to come and preach,” he reiterated.
“In football, you don’t need a pastor to come and preach. I’ve never heard a priest come to the players to have their belief restored.”
*Apart from the Moroka Swallows game on 30 December, which was ruled in their favour by the PSL DC.
