Zwane: Chiefs, Maritzburg in same boat

Maritzburg United head coach John Maduka was one of the few coaches who completed a double over Kaizer Chiefs last season, and tonight he visits Amakhosi hoping to continue where he left off. 

With Royal AM last season, Maduka won 4-1 at FNB Stadium in the first round and followed that up with a 1-0 home victory over Amakhosi. 

Interestingly, Chiefs lost their opening game this past weekend against Thwihli Thwahla, but coach Arthur Zwane expects his side to bring a much-improved performance against the Team of Choice tonight (19:30 kick-off).

"We're playing against a top team that's also, I believe, in a rebuilding phase. When you look at the number of players that they brought in, they are still trying to find themselves and get their system going, so I think we're in the same boat," said Zwane.

"But, judging by the performance that we displayed in Durban [against Royal AM], if we can keep the same tempo then I think we stand a good chance of getting maximum points.

"Watching their game on Saturday - we had to watch and analyse, we went to bed around 3 am [on Sunday] - they were playing 3-4-3 and, yes, we saw they played Keegan Ritchie, one of their left-centre-backs, so now we will look at the loopholes to see how we can capitalise."

Amakhosi collected only 22 points from a possible 45 at home last season, winning five games, drawing five and losing five, and goalkeeper Bruce Bvuma is aware of the importance of improving on these numbers as well as only the five clean sheets produced at home last season.

"We still have 29 games to play but I believe it's important for us to get maximum points on Tuesday, especially that we're playing at home, we need to dominate the way we did [on Saturday]," said Bvuma.

"Going forward, I know we'll play like that again and try by all means to win games so we want to start on Tuesday and try by all means to get maximum points."

By Velile Mnyandu