We are prepared and ready - Komphela

Cape Town - Kaizer Chiefs coach Steve Komphela admits that his side will be more mentally prepared for their Mamelodi Sundowns encounter.

According to the Kaizer Chiefs website, the coach reveals that he hopes his charges can flip the script in the second-half of the PSL campaign as they plan to improve.

“This is going to be the first game of the New Year,” Komphela said.

“It’s a match that can affect the league championship.”

Amakhosi lost the Telkom Knockout final against the Brazilians, but three days later beat Bidvest Wits 2-1 at home in Cape Town.

“Our team has shown that they are great in comebacks,” Komphela stresses, “we did the same when we lost to Orlando Pirates, before beating them a week later in the Telkom Knockout semifinal. Any comeback is always a sign of a team’s character.”

Chiefs occupy fourth position on the Absa Premiership log, having 21 points from 12 games, five points behind log leaders Sundowns.

The Amakhosi coach, however, pointed out a few positives in terms of statistics.

The team is ranked third when it comes to goals scored with Chiefs rattling the back of the net 19 times, while only two teams have managed to find the net once more.

On the other hand, the side has only conceded nine goals in their twelve League games played so far.

On top of that, Chiefs are the only team that has lost once, other sides have lost twice or more (Maritzburg United, for example, have lost eight matches out of 12 played).

To win the league title, usually, except the last two seasons, 60 points collected from 30 matches is enough, that’s two points per game.

“That’s three points from where we would have loved to be,” continuous Komphela.

“All these statistics give an indication of where we are. There are a lot of positives. Yes, of course, we want to do better and that’s what we plan to do during the second half of the season. There are still 18 league matches to go.”

To plan for the second-half of the season, the team went for a four-day training camp in the Vaal.

“After the win over Wits,” Komphela reflects, “we trained on 28, 29 and 30 December, before going on camp from 2 January.

“Football is physical, tactical, technical and mental. We prepared in the Vaal for the Sundowns match, maybe even more mentally than, for example, tactically.

“We are prepared and ready to go on Saturday.”

Kick-off is at 20:15.