Cape Town - Kaizer Chiefs coach Ernst Middendorp has pointed to his side's performances against Q3 winners Cape Town City as evidence for their improvement in the last quarter.
With 15 points collected from their last eight games, Chiefs finished narrowly behind Supersport United and Cape Town City, who amassed 16 points, in the race for the Q-innovation award, which saw City bag the R1,5 million prize on goal difference.
Sundowns coach Pitso Mosimane said yesterday that Chiefs would be the team to watch next season after convincingly brushing aside Benni McCarthy's City 2-0 on Sunday to book a place in the Nedbank Cup semi-final.
Indeed, Amakhosi have outplayed City in all three encounters between the sides this season but were desperately unlucky to lose 1-0 in January courtesy of a Virgil Vries mistake despite being on the front foot throughout the game. If it were not for this error, as well as Daniel Akpeyi's in the 1-1 draw with Polokwane, Middendorp's side would have emerged as Q3 winners.
"In the last eight [Absa Premiership] games, first is Cape Town City, second is SuperSport United - [both] with 16 points, and third is Kaizer Chiefs with 15 points,” Middendorp told Kickoff.
"Now consider that Cape Town City and SuperSport have been working since the beginning of the season with the same build-up and producing something over pre-season [with the same coach].
"We have not had this opportunity and you know our issues [with goalkeeping mistakes] in certain moments, why we don’t have five or six points more - I don’t have to repeat it."