Amakhosi defender Fabian McCarthy has told kaizerchiefs.com that he and his team mates understand the delicate position that they find themselves in at the moment on the league standings. As a result they cannot afford to drop points over the course of the remainder of the season, if they are to end off the season in a top eight qualification spot.

Speaking to kaizerchiefs.com on Thursday morning McCarthy is aiming at wining Chiefs remaining five matches of the season, which will ensure that they qualify for the top eight and could even be enough for Chiefs to qualify for next years African Confederations Cup.

Chiefs are next in action on the 26th April against Santos. According to McCarthy the way the programme has been designed the run into the season is favourable to the Amakhosi as it gives them time to rest between sets of matches.

Table turning

The PSL table had some major shifting of places taking place after Wednesday evenings ABSA Premiership matches, with some teams below the Amakhosi winning their matches Chiefs currently lie outside the top eight places.

McCarthy who had to sit out the loss to Sundowns as he was suspended for the game, says that Chiefs are well aware of the importance of these next five games. “We have said it over and over again and this we do not want to miss out on the Supa8 again, so it now means that we must target collecting fifteen points from these matches. At the moment the way things stand one win can catapult you way up, I believe if we can collect full points against Santos and Arrows we will be back up the table”.

Tough ask

McCarthy feels that it will require Chiefs to dig deep and labour hard in these last five games as they will be up against opposition who like them, would like to end off some where in positions 1- 8. He added “We are aware that the position were are in we cannot afford to to drop points, so in our mind we want to win each of these five matches, we play Santos, Arrows, Pirates and Celtic all teams who are not secure of a top eight finish. So obviously these games will be something like cup matches, a loss in any one will mean that you are on the back foot. We saw on Sunday that one moment of misfortune and your opponents can capitalize on that and you in trouble, so although these are league matches we have to approach them with a cup match mindset and think of them as knock out games”.

Favourable situation

Chiefs run into the season sees them playing five games in four weeks. McCarthy though feels that the way The fixture list has been drawn up could work to Chiefs advantage, as he added. “I think that things could well play into our hands, building up to the Santos match we have had time to rest after six matches in close succession and we have had time to recuperate and re-energize. We then face Santos and soon after Arrows which means that we had enough rest and will be up for those two games, then three matches in a week as we round off the season. The important thing is before those matches we will again have had around ten days of rest before hand, we have the right amount of rest and with the matches close to each other in spells of two and three we will not lose our momentum”.