Kaizer Chiefs assistant coach Khalil Ben Youssef has given a frank assessment of the team's campaign to date following their arrival at the beginning of the season.
Ben Youssef – who has worked in Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Tanzania, Morocco, and Libya – will stand in for head coach Nasreddine Nabi, who is serving suspension after being red-carded against Golden Arrows.
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He came in with fellow assistant Cedric Kaze, Safi Majdi as conditioning coach, and goalkeeper coach Ilyes Mzoughi.
Fifteen games into the season, it has been six wins, six defeats and three draws.
"To be honest with you, in football to make a new project takes time, just like it is with life," says Khalil Ben Youssef, the Chiefs assistant coach.
"From the first day, we have kept the language and the same promise in that in the first season we are here to build our team," says Khalil Ben Youssef, the Chiefs assistant coach.
"There are new players and to make your team work the same way, you have to keep the same squad.
"For us, with every game we lose one or two players, at times with a yellow or red card and a lot of times with big injuries and we have to change the team and at times the plan of the game as well.
"You can only say a project is negative or positive only after one year and then you decide on a new project.
"We are new in this league as a technical bench and the team has changed from last season.
"Maybe there are three or four players that were playing last season and now we have a new team.
"So, for that we need time to make everything right.
"I think the players are making a lot of improvements in trying to make it right.
"We analyse every game, and the problem is always the last third.
"The last third is not depending on the training and the coach, but there are a lot of things, which include the quality of the player and the decision of the player.
"It depends on our players and the day our players made it right, we scored four goals against SuperSport United.
"In the other games sometimes, we are unlucky and sometimes the decision of the players is wrong.
"The most important thing is that we know our problem and we are trying to make it right.
"We always have the same problem in the last third in how we score and how we make it right when we get the opportunity to score.
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"We are working on it, but in the last third it will be the decision of the player.
"Sometimes it is a technical mistake.
"Sometimes we are unlucky, like you saw in the last game, and so that is football.
"We know what we need in this team and we try to work on it and keep it right," he details.