Zwane reveals Chiefs' striker struggles

As things stand, Kaizer Chiefs are going into the new season without a main striker as head coach Arthur Zwane told SABC Sport about their struggles to find a suitable target man. 

Speaking to the media at the launch of the 2022/23 DStv Premiership season on Thursday, Zwane revealed that they had done their best to try and find a proper number-nine but their efforts have so far been in vain. 

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At the end of last season, Chiefs released four strikers - Leonardo Castro, Samir Nurkovic, Lazalous Kambole and Bernard Parker - and, with Zwane having a pre-set game model, the search for his ideal target has not been easy.

Of the seven signings that Chiefs have made ahead of the new season, only Ashley Du Preez can be considered an attacker but he is not an out-and-out striker. 

"To be quite honest, we've been looking, searching, hunting... It's difficult to get one - reason being, whenever you get one then he's not [available] on the market, he's not for sale and they [clubs] make your life difficult," said Zwane.

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"Those that are available, I don't think they can come and add value. Yes, we are avoiding a situation where now we'll do a quick-fix like we used to do in the past, and it did not pay off at the end of the day and the team suffered for a very long time.

"So, right now we're trying to build an identity and way of play so that each and everyone knows his role and responsibilities on and off the field, and that already will make our life easy to identify players that can come in and add value with different and rare qualities.

"At the moment we have players that are similar in terms of quality up front, so we need that one who can maybe hold the ball for us, and who's a good header of the ball and is also a little aggressive, but who's also technically sound."

Chiefs had Burundian international striker Bonfils-Caleb Bimenyimana on trial and it was thought that he would impress Zwane and his technical team after scoring three goals in the training matches he featured in, but this has not been the case.

"Not what we're looking for," he responded.

By Velile Mnyandu