The second and final year on Nasreddine Nabi’s contract at Kaizer Chiefs will carry momentous value for the Tunisian.
Nabi hasn’t impressed all at the club despite ending the 10-year trophy drought by lifting the Nedbank Cup.
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It was partly for this reason that there was already talk of a possible exit at the end of last season straight after the cup success.
While a departure didn’t happen at the end of last term due to the weight of his ongoing contract it will be simpler come next June.
The Tunisian won fewer games than Molefi Ntseki and Cavin Johnson put together, through the previous season.
While Ntseki/Johnson put in a combined 30% winning mark, with Nabi it dropped to 28,57% conceding more goals, despite a season which came out two games shorter.
Chiefs will gear up this season, featuring in multiple competitions, where they will play in the Betway Premiership, Carling KnockOut, Nedbank Cup, and the CAF Confederation Cup.
They will start away at Stellenbosch in the league on August 10 then host Polokwane City three days later with 13 league games lined up before the AFCON break in December.
Amakhosi will start their Confederation Cup campaign in the preliminary round in September.
All the talk about building which was pregnant with every utterance that he made last season as Chiefs became easy prey will be tolerated less by the club’s massive fanbase.
It will not be acceptable for Chiefs to suffer defeat in 43% (12 out of 28) of the games that they play in the league and end up with less than half the points available to play for.
That defeat percentage was the worst for the club in the league through their PSL history going back to August 1996.
So, not only does Nabi need to find solutions to winning games more frequently, he will be pressed to take Chiefs in the direction of challenging for the league title if not winning it, as per the expectations at the club.
Should the negative goal difference from last season continue, then it will be akin to watching the axe being sharpened.
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Nabi has it all to do to avoid having Chiefs being mentioned as a former employer come end of the season.
It is a test bigger than what he has ever faced in all his previous jobs and will call for him doing more than just delivering knockout silverware.
Photo: Sydney Seshibedi/Gallo Images
