Nasreddine Nabi has provided his assessment of what Kaizer Chiefs have to improve heading into the international break after a 4-0 thrashing from Mamelodi Sundowns.
Amakhosi's struggles were laid bare in a humiliating defeat to Sundowns in the quarterfinals of the Carling Knockout at a sold-out FNB Stadium last Saturday. A goal each from Khuliso Mudau and Peter Shalulile, coupled with a brace from Iqraam Rayners, sent the Soweto giants crashing out of the competition.
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Sundowns could have scored more were it not for some wayward finishing but still managed to land eight shots on targets, double the amount managed by their opponents, who struggled to impose themselves on the game.
Things went from bad to worse when captain Inacio Miguel was sent off after receiving his second yellow card of the match in the early stages of the second half.
Speaking at the post-match press conference, Nabi admitted that his side were outclassed in every aspect and called for improvement.
"We want to improve our quality of play. We were a little bit nervous. We need to improve our decision-making, our technique, our confidence with teammates because sometimes we get the ball and teammates are reluctant to ask for the ball," the experienced mentor said via translator and assistant coach Cedric Kaze.
"For example, you have a solution to Sundowns pressing, simple solutions, but we didn't take the simple solutions. There was bad decision-making, not making the good decisions in how we want to play.
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"There were a lot of situations where we believe that we made bad decisions. Most of the time, we knew the wide players were open and they didn't get that kind of pressing, but most of the time tried to play through the middle, which was very difficult.
"And this is part of the learning curve that we believe will improve our team. It will improve our team and now we return to the training pitch, the drawing board, to improve ourselves," added Nabi.
With all his experience and accomplishments, it's far too early to ring the alarm bells and the double treble-winning coach will aim to use the international break to find solutions.