Kaizer Chiefs coach Arthur Zwane has stated he will not 'kill' Siyabonga Ngezana after his costly mistakes in the 4-0 loss away to the Premier Soccer League champions Mamelodi Sundowns.
The towering defender had a hand in two of the goals Amakhosi conceded - giving away the ball for the Brazilians' opener before conceding a penalty.
The tactician believes the player was low on confidence heading into the game.
"If you look at how it happened, it happened early in the game and from there he couldn’t recover," Zwane told iDiski Times.
"It’s unlike Siya. Siya is one player that in the one-vs-one situation he’s one of the best defenders we have. For example, the fourth goal, where they play the ball down the line, in those situations Siya usually comes on top.
"Unfortunately, he was not himself today [Saturday]. I think it's because of the knee as well.
"He actually came to me after the game [against Maritzburg] because remember he couldn’t finish the game, he came to me and said ‘I’m not 100% but I’ll give my best’. I said 'try and if you can’t we'll take you out and bring in someone else'."
The 48-year-old has further revealed he wanted to maintain the Ngezana and Zitha Kwinika partnership and said mistakes do happen in the game of football.
"We didn’t want to break that combination between him and Zitha, more especially with the kind of game that we’re coming to play here. Unfortunately, he was not himself, he was not at his best and he had to commit and that killed his confidence," Zwane continued.
"But these things do happen in football. I’m not going to kill him because of that. We’ll try and help him to lift his spirit up in training. Many other players are still going to commit such mistakes and we’ll move on. We’ll get better with time, we all make mistakes.
"Even though I think the referees made a mistake, they gave Zitha the yellow card, when it wasn’t even his foul. But it’s one of those things, what I’m trying to say is that we’re all human beings, we’re bound to make mistakes. It’s part of the game. We learn from those mistakes and we move on."
Amakhosi will now turn their attention to their next game against Richards Bay at the Moses Mabhida Stadium.
