Stuart Baxter: We need to bring the points back to Soweto
Kaizer Chiefs coach Stuart Baxter has given a wide-ranging interview on the eve of his side’s DStv Premiership clash against Baroka FC on Saturday, 26 February.
Kick-off is at 19:30.
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The match will be Amakhosi’s last ahead of next weekend’s Soweto derby against Orlando Pirates.
Kaizer Chiefs are currently fifth in the standings, while Baroka FC are 16th and last.
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On Chiefs’ activity while being out of competitive action:
We didn’t have a game in the last two rounds of games, so we played a friendly against SuperSport United. It was a good one, very competitive. We tried to top up the players who hadn’t played a lot and gave a rest to those who had played a lot and a couple of lads who came back from injury we got them back into a competitive game again, so that was good. We really worked on our game and we’re looking forward to the Baroka match.
On finding goals – and balance:
Every team needs goals. You need balance. We want goals without going gung-ho and suddenly losing 4-0. You want goals coming from things you can repeat. You get a goal and someone shoots from 40 metres, has three ricochets and we get lucky and we win. Can we repeat that? We want a style of football that will hurt opponents, gives good balance and we can defend behind it and we can repeat it.
Stuart Baxter on more of a ‘cutting edge’:
Our movement around the box is good, producing good situations is good, but too many things are not converted, because we don’t have that cutting edge.
On available players in the squad:
We’ve got a couple of players coming back. Njabulo Ngcobo is coming back into the squad. Leonardo Castro is fit enough to be selected again, Samir (Nurkovic) is coming back. Siya (Ngezana) is back now (from suspension). Being an away game, you want to make sure you’ve got enough tactical options to defend well, but we’ve also got to have enough attacking players. Bibo (Sabelo Radebe) comes back into the squad and Mshini (Nkosingiphile Ngcobo) comes back into the squad, he was ill last week. So, we’ve got a few good options with our front players. We can rotate them, we can play with three, we can play with two, so I’m happy with the squad we’ve selected. It gives us lots of options.
Stuart Baxter on facing Baroka FC
With Baroka we know if you look at their result when they played against Sundowns, they gave them a good game. Arguably, if they had taken their chances earlier in the game, they could have won. So we know when they play against us when we play very well for a period and if we allow that level to go down, it will be a competitive game. We know when they play against a Sundowns, a Chiefs or a Pirates, let’s call it the bigger clubs on paper, Baroka can get themselves up for it and can be difficult opponents. We also know if we play like we can play, we can be a difficult opponent as well. There are no foregone conclusions, no surprises, just a good professional job, get the points and bring them back to Joburg.
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