Kaizer Chiefs coach Stuart Baxter admits that Benni McCarthy’s AmaZulu outfit should have “put them to the sword” by three or four goals on Wednesday.

The Soweto giants failed to secure their third consecutive victory in the DStv Premiership after they were held to a 1-1 draw with AmaZulu at the FNB Stadium.

Amakhosi took the lead in the 20th minute when Keagan Buchanan slotted the ball into his own net, but substitute Bongi Ntuli earned his side a point with a 77th-minute equaliser.

The draw moves Amakhosi up to fifth place in the DStv Premiership standings on 19 points, while Usuthu are up to eight with 16 points from 12 matches.

“This is on prime-time television. I can’t swear, can I?” Baxter asked SuperSport TV after the game.

“I thought it was a poor game. I thought we were good for about 15-20 minutes. And then, for some reason, we switched off. We had good control of the game but then we switched off and AmaZulu got back into the game in the last 15-20 minutes of the first half, where they were threatening without being really dangerous.

“And then, second half, we wanted to be braver, we wanted to get on the ball more. But that just led to us losing structure completely. And the red card put us up against the wall and we concede what is a very poor goal. But through the whole of the second half the decision-making on our side was very, very poor.

“If I was Benni, I would be going mental that they didn’t put us to the sword by three or four goals because I thought we were that bad.”

He added: “It was poor. Poor. When you go into a football field and you toss all the work that you’ve done in the week and toss it out the window and think you can just improvise or just make a decision based on what is … that’s probably what’s been holding South African football back for many, many years. When we can integrate South African football and Kaizer Chiefs the structure with the creativity, then we would have very good football.

“But if you think you’re just going to make decisions off the top of the head and take as many touches as you want every time you get the ball, no one can read anything and then you play poor and our play was poor.”