Cavin Johnson - I cannot fault my players

Johnson was speaking to the media at the Buffalo City Stadium in East London, following a 2-0 loss to Chippa United.

This past Wednesday, Chiefs defender Fleurs was gunned down in a botched car hijacking at a filling station in Constantia Kloof, West of Johannesburg.

Johnson has saluted his players following what he terms a gallant effort.

READ: Thabo September hails mentality of Chippa players after upsetting Kaizer Chiefs

"We lost the game so we're not happy but at the same time, I cannot say I'm not happy with my players' performance. I thought they really put up a good performance, I thought the one thing I'm not pleased with is that we gave away two silly goals and that creates just a big, big fight,” Johnson said.

“So, that's my observation of the game but in saying that, we have to look back and we take a lot of cognisance of the fact that we lost one of our players in the week and the players were ready to play and for that I will say today [Saturday] they've done very well from where they've been the whole week to come and play a game of football like today. I think it was very good."

Describing the mood in the camp in the past few days, Johnson says it has been very challenging, especially after meeting Fleurs’ family on Friday before traveling to the Eastern Cape.

"Look, the mood in the camp has been up and down for the last few days, only because in one moment you find out that one of your players, one of my children are gone and in the next moment you have to send your condolences to their family and the next moment you've got to come to the players and discuss with them what their feelings are, how close they have gotten to Luke,” Johnson added.

“So, it's up and down and yesterday before we came here, we had to spend time with the family and we had to talk to the family as well. The family had to talk to us and we just had to clean the air as far as that's concerned but in saying that the players did look like they came through that but I'm not a psychologist. So, from a football perspective, I can only say that today's performance and effort was what Luke would have liked. So, that's the only way I can answer that."