Amakhosi skipper Jimmy Tau insists that the team need to do all they can on Saturday to defeat current league leaders Mamelodi Sundowns, when they host the Brazilians in a top of the table Absa Premiership clash at the FNB Stadium.

Tau believes that for Chiefs to keep up with the league leaders a victory over them on Saturday will help the Amakhosi close the gap on Sundowns, “this is a crucial game for us January and February are very important months for us in the title race.

This game against Sundowns and the following ones in the next week can help to define our season, right now it is important for us to ensure that they do not push off into the distance and we need to stay as close as possible as we can to Sundowns.”

The Chiefs captain further explained that he is not concerned with the fact that the Amakhosi were unable to defeat Sundowns last season, “really the stats from the past are not a factor to us we cannot concern ourselves with what happened last season. We need to concentrate on the here and the now, and try and improve our league situation.”

With Chiefs training through the festive break Tau feels that they have invested a lot in to ensuring that they can obtain the maximum number of points when they face Sundowns on Saturday.

As he said “we had no break for two weeks prior to this game we have been hard at work, as a team we have sacrificed a lot. Right now for all of us the team comes first which is good because everyone is willing to do whatever he can to make sure we are successful not just in this game but going forward.

Basically from here on in no game can be termed as a Cup Final for us they are more important than that. After this game we will prepare with the same urgency for our next game and the one after that, obviously winning against Sundowns will give us a good psychological boost for our following fixtures.”

Tau has also credited the team for digging deep and overcoming a difficult period when they lost back to back league games in November and early December to Vasco Da Gama and Free State Stars by bouncing back to win their final two games league games of 2010 against BIDVest Wits and Mpumalanga Black Aces.

As he concluded his discussion with kaizerchiefs.com saying “losing three out of four games at a time was low point for us in the season, we happy that we won our last two games as it pulled us out of that and I believe now that we come through that we have learned a lesson and we will not repeat the same mistakes again.

While we were in the midst of losing those games the guys united got together and turned the situation around, we now find ourselves in second place on the league table.”