Soweto Derby disaster! Cedric Kaze responds to talk of Kaizer Chiefs wielding the axe after Orlando Pirates humiliation

Kaizer Chiefs hoped to stop their rivals, Orlando Pirates, from getting their fifth straight Premier Soccer League Soweto Derby win on Saturday at the FNB Stadium.

However, they were undone with strikes from Tshepang Moremi, Oswin Appollis, and Evidence Makgopa, who each scored to give the Sea Robbers a 3-0 win.

It was the club’s heaviest Derby loss in a quarter of a century, and the fallout has been swift.

Chiefs now find themselves trailing their arch-rivals by 11 points in the title race, and with their cup campaigns in tatters, the season is rapidly slipping away.

Cedric Kaze, however, remains adamant that he still has the backing of the Amakhosi hierarchy despite the growing calls for a change in the dugout. 

Addressing the speculation surrounding his future, Kaze defended his position by stating: "It’s not up to me, but I believe that we’re here because we’re trusted by management. It’s true that we’ve been in a series of bad results, but I believe there are things that have worked in the past few months."

Setting out his plan for a recovery, the Burundian coach emphasised a return to defensive solidarity as the primary objective for the remaining fixtures of the season.

"We need to remind ourselves, our players, what has worked in the first half of the league and probably come back to the basics of football – how well we defended, if we don’t score, don’t concede, things like that, it’s the only way to go forward," the under-fire tactician explained.

The statistical reality remains grim for the Soweto giants after a month that saw them eliminated from the CAF Confederation Cup and the Nedbank Cup. With the league title now appearing to be a distant dream, the pressure on Kaze and his staff will only intensify unless results improve immediately.

Chiefs struggled from the first whistle to get their rhythm as the Buccaneers dominated in all departments.

“I believe that the opponents deserve the win; we were nowhere near them. The first four, five goals we conceded a goal on the short corner, that maybe took a toll on how we wanted to start the game," Chiefs co-coach Cedric Kaze said in his post-match interview.

“I feel like in the second half, in the half we came with better intentions, with better ideas, as well as the opponents used tricks in the first 15 minutes, every minute falling and taking our energy down too. After that, the third goal, Miguel is out, we are a man down, and we don’t manage the moment well.

“It’s a big disappointment, but we still have 13 games to go. We need to pick our heads up. It’s a very difficult pill to swallow, but we need to swallow it and go back to the training field to work more," he concluded.

The Glamour Boys have now lost three games in a row across all competitions, and four in the last five outings.

In barely three weeks, the Soweto giants were knocked out of the Nedbank Cup, CAF Confederation Cup, and are currently trailing leaders Pirates in the PSL log by 11 points.

They will need to pick themselves up quickly, as on Tuesday, Amakhosi will have a seemingly simpler task in the PSL when they play Richards Bay away.

Anything less than a comprehensive victory will see calls for the technical team's axing grow ever louder.