The general rule in football is that when a coach starts criticising his players, he is ready to leave the club. However, in Kaizer Chiefs coach Nasreddine Nabi’s case, the tactician will do anything but say anything negative about a specific player.
Over the weekend in their Betway Premiership clash, Chiefs were leading 1-0 against TS Galaxy when Inacio Miguel went down injured just before a Galaxy setpiece.
Nabi brought on defender Edmilson Dove, and the substitute’s first touch directly led to the Galaxy equaliser.
There’s also the matter of making a change just before a setpiece, but Nabi was not having any of that.
Nabi's resilient battle to against critics
“They say that you don’t do substitutions during set pieces. Miguel was injured. Are you not going to do a substitution because they don’t do substitutions and play with minus one player?” Nabi said.
“That doesn’t make sense. The second thing is we were trying to make other changes with George Matlou and Tashreeq Morris to give us more height, but unfortunately, there was a little bit of tardiness and unfortunately, we conceded a goal.”
With the draw, Chiefs finally notched up 30 points, but it’s after 24 games and sees the Soweto Giants in eighth place. Galaxy, meanwhile, are six points ahead in fourth position. Sekhukhune United are third on 37 points.
There was still hope that Chiefs could finish as high as third this season, but now that they are seven points behind Sekhukhune with just six games remaining, that hope is indeed dwindling.
Chiefs’ big rivals Orlando Pirates are second on 46 points and are still in the title chase with three games in hand over table-toppers Mamelodi Sundowns, who currently are 10 points ahead.