Our victory over Pirates this past Saturday is one that we can take a lot of heart from, we played with character, determination and a desire to win. The players carried out the instructions metered out to them with efficiency and carried it out to the tee so to say. None of the players expected to be carried or for their team mates to do their job for them but stood up and got counted, over all the performance against Pirates was one that we can be proud of.

It was not a good thing losing two players in the first half through injury, that happens in soccer so we had to restructure ourselves and the guys who came in did their job well, even though we had to make several tactical changes.

I also did feel that we could have scored another goal - we had a number of easy one-on-one chances which we should have finished better and got the second goal. On the other hand we took our one opportunity and then we were kept in the game by some superb defending from Siphiwe Mkhonza and Cyril Nzama at the centre of defence, then Emile made some big saves to keep us in the game.

The first of his saves came just before the half-time break when he really did well to turn over a long range shot, there were a host of commendable saves in the second half made by Emile - the best was stopping a close range shot from Benedict Vilakazi.

Once again we can lay praise on David Obua; he started off the game on the left side of midfield where he was superb to say the least. Then he was forced to play at left-back after Ditheko Mototo left the field of play, he fitted in equally well at left-back and he helped to support the guys when we were attacking.

Obviously he scored the important goal that made the difference; he timed his run perfectly and with great vision and superb power headed us into the lead. David is a remarkable player and one of the work horses of the team, like in the previous derby in October he did not let the occasion get to him but got the better of the situation.

Prior to the game I had to make some decision regarding team selection; it was really more on gut feel than anything else that certain decision were made. The decision to omit Fabian McCarthy was not an easy one; he has been a consistent performer and a valuable team contributor.

I have thought that over the past few weeks he has needed to improve certain aspects of his game and his disciplinary recorded also needed improvement, against Free State Stars on Wednesday night he looked slow and also got an unnecessary yellow card for pulling an opposition player down.

He needs to find his feet again and start timing his tackles better, Fabian knows now that there is serious competition for a spot in the eighteen man game day squad and he needs to fight for his place.

Love and Peace!

Ernst Middendorp


Kaizer Chiefs Head Coach