Kaizer Chiefs assitant coach Arthur Zwane has admitted that the team will still be missing a number of first-team players when they face Royal AM on Sunday.

Amakhosi missed games against Cape Town City and Golden Arrows last week as they battled a Covid-19 outbreak at the club. They, however, returned to the pitch this past Sunday in a 2-0 win over Sekhukhune United albeit with a heavily depleted squad.

Now, with another game fast approaching, Zwane admits they won’t have everybody back for the next game.

“Unfortunately, we won’t be able to have everybody back fully fit and ready for the next game because, when certain players come back, they still have to go for tests and start doing some physical work before they join the rest of the boys,” said Zwane.

“Yes, you could even see today we risked Phathu [Nange] and you could see he was breathing heavily. At some point, he was coughing but we had no choice but to play him because we wanted to consolidate as Njabulo Blom had been cramping.

“We would have loved to bring in one of the younger boys from the development and the reserve team but at some point, we didn’t want to just throw them into the deep end. I thought that we already had enough young players on the field with [Kgaogelo] Sekgota, Njabulo [Blom] and Siya Ngezana. We played about seven boys who are young, which is good for the future of this team,” said Zwane.

Zwane also admits that it has been difficult to continue the work with the technical team all split up due to different isolations.

“We have a technical team, and we all work together, and it has been unfortunate for coach Stuart that he is recovering at home at the moment. As you know, all of us were in isolation at some point and, fortunately for us, we came before the coach could come back.

“We discuss and have been preparing the team because we are a team as the technical staff,” concluded Zwane.