Former Kaizer Chiefs coach, Jeff Butler, has advised current coach, Steve Komphela, to be brave when it comes to cutting out older players.
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Komphela has inherited a relatively old squad including the likes of Tsepo Masilela, Siboniso Gaxa, Willard Katsande, Reneilwe Letsholonyane, Siphiwe Tshabalala and Bernard Parker who are all around their 30s.
Butler faced a similar dilemma to Komphela when he first took charge of the Amakhosi and had to be ruthless in phasing out the older established stars in order to build for the future.
“Cutting out the older players has to be done early. You get borderline games where you get away with winning in the last minute. If you don’t deal with the age thing early, all of a sudden four or five of them finish together,” Butler told Soccer Laduma.
“You can’t have them all getting old and then suddenly losing form! You’ll find that one week one player is okay and the others are off form. Then the next he’s back on it and the other one is off it a little bit.”
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“You have to see the warning signs or it will suddenly fall to pieces! It’s very dangerous and you have to keep feeding in the young players. Nothing replaces youth... nothing! Youth that knocks on the door has to be given license to play. You’ve got to be brave enough to do it!” he added.
