Kaizer Chiefs coach Ted Dumitru said he was happy about the outcome of the Premiership match against Ajax Cape Town at Ellis Park on Saturday but admitted that the score-line could have been different had it not been for what he called 'erratic form of attack'.

What the coach had to say...

The approach was very simple in our game against Ajax. Given the fact that we were playing against a team that was on top of the log, obviously if you are on top of the log you will not be defensive in your approach and will try to balance the game as much as possible.

As part of our planning we prepared two approaches to the game - the long balls behind their fullbacks and the short inter-passing or penetration in the middle, which worked well as we scored the goal exploiting the space left between the centre-backs as they we busy marking outside.

But after that goal my disappointment grew by each passing second. To me it appeared that after scoring the goal and having one or two clear chances, we seemed to consider ourselves to have already won the match.

That is not acceptable and we are going to have some serious discussions with some of the players.

Overall it was a highly competitive match. They were forced to open up even more as they threw everything in attack. The score perhaps reflects the difference in approach and I am very happy with that. But we still need to work hard on some aspects of the game.

This victory is certainly a strong motivational factor but at the same time it exposes certain things that we have to improve in order to achieve our goal of winning the league. We have to work on some of the players who relax a bit too early during the game.

In terms of delivery potential we are playing about 60 percent of our striking force. The reason is very simple. I discovered an idea within the team that the ball should be rushed forward with the players chasing the ball hoping that the will be a mistake from the opposition to allow them to score.

I am still fighting to completely eradicate that horrible concept because if the opposition defenders don’t make mistakes it means you will never score. It is clear that some of our players were trained or indoctrinated to rush the ball forward and chase with the hope that somehow there will be a mistake.

We are still paying a heavy price for that because some of our strikers are not settled yet. There quick tactical planning that you make before going to a finishing situations is not there. They are playing instinctive attacking football. It’s all of them.

There are a few exceptions but certain strikers go for what we call "erratic form of attack" and we have to work on that. That is the only element that is still missing from our plan. The idea is to improve what we have and not to bring new faces.

Finally, I know people will quickly jump into conclusions regarding Jabu Pule. The boy was not feeling very well hence he was not in the team for the Ajax game.

Ted Dumitru


Kaizer Chiefs Coach