Kaizer Chiefs co-coach Khalil Ben Youssef has identified a “big problem” that has troubled the club since 2019. Ben Youssef spoke after the frustrating goalless draw, where they failed to convert their chances.
Amakhosi, who began the season fairly well, fell to fifth place in the standings after having difficulty overcoming a resilient Chippa side on Wednesday evening.
The Soweto giants created several decent opportunities, with Mfundo Vilakazi having the best chance when he was open inside the box but was thwarted by an alert Chippa’s Dumisani Msibi.
The Tunisian coach has identified an issue that has troubled the club over the past six years.
WHAT IS CHIEFS’ BIG PROBLEM IDENTIFIED BY KHALIL BEN YOUSSEF
“I’ve to say congratulations to Chippa for the game they played. They played with a good structure, and there was fight in every challenge,” he said on SuperSport TV.
“When you get a six-metre opportunity one-v-one you don’t score, that’s football.”
The last time Chiefs scored more than 34 goals in a 30-game season was in 2019/20 when they finished second behind Mamelodi Sundowns. That season, they scored 48 goals, five more than Sundowns, missing out on the league title by two points.
In 2020/21, they registered 34 goals, finishing eighth, while the following season they ended fifth with the same number of goals. In the 2022/23 season, Amakhosi scored 32 goals, yet still finished fifth.
Under Cavin Johnson in 2023/24, they finished 10th, with 25 goals scored. The issue persisted under Nasreddine Nabi last season, when they scored only 25 goals in 28 games.
Meanwhile, Chiefs face TS Galaxy in the final Betway Premiership match before the AFCON break on Sunday.
Ben Youssef vowed they would “continue to work” and “correct the same problem.” “Now we are every time in the final third, and we don’t score. That’s the big problem that we have, and we have to continue to work.”
He believes “that’s coming from the players, individual qualities, one-on-one situations.” But the former Young Africans and AS FAR Rabat assistant coach admits their responsibility as coaches is to “fix our mistakes” while the players “find the right solutions.”
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