The former striker has given the diagnosis to what ails the Glamour Boys
Kaizer Chiefs legend Shane McGregor has blamed the club’s woes on Amakhosi’s recruitment approach.
Chiefs are without a trophy since 2015 and finished 10th in the just-concluded season after experiencing a poor run of form, first under Molefi Ntseki, before Calvin Johnson took over in an interim capacity.
The Glamour Boys are now close to appointing Tunisian coach Nasreddine Nabi to try and revive their fortunes but McGregor, who made 120 appearances while scoring 64 goals from 1987 to 1994, thinks the club will keep hiring and sacking coaches until they allow the tacticians to have a say on the players the club signs.
“They’re blaming the coaches. ‘Here’s my question, who bought those players for the coaches?’ This is where it all starts, so the right start is where the coaches have never gone in and said ‘I want this player, I want that player’. They have never done that,” McGregor told iDiski Times.
‘You’ve got these players and that’s what you got to work with’
“It’s always been you’ve got these players and that’s what you got to work with. For me, if you want to give a coach an opportunity, you give him a two-to-three-year contract, and you say ‘okay, an R10 million or R100 million [budget]’ or whatever, ‘buy your players’, and if after a year-and-a-half or two years, you can see he’s failing, then I’ll say, ‘fine, it’s the coach’s fault’.
“Because a coach comes in, and he’s got players there that he just inherited, how is he supposed to work with that? I mean, it’s so difficult.”
McGregor also warned Chiefs against choosing assistant coaches for their new tacticians, advising the club to allow the trainers to bring in their own men.
“Anywhere else in the world, that would never happen. And then you look at when they want to bring their technical team in, why are they stopping coaches from bringing in their own technical teams because they want their people there and to see what’s going on and to influence, and that’s the problem,” he added.
Chiefs have allowed Nabi to bring his own men to Naturena
The issue of coaches having assistants that have been chosen by the club saw talks between Chiefs and Nabi break down at the start of the 2023-24 season before Amakhosi turned to Ntseki but the decision backfired.
Chiefs had to swallow their pride and go back in for Nabi, allowing him to bring in his backroom staff, and now, he is set to arrive at Naturena accompanied by assistant coaches Khalil Ben Youssef and Ilyes Mzoughi as well as Tunisian physical trainer.
It is not known whether he will have a big influence on transfers but prominent agent Mike Makaab already revealed early this month that Chiefs have put recruitment plans on hold until the new coach arrives, which suggests he will likely have a say on the outgoings and incomings.
