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Akpeyi comments on Kaizer Chiefs' relegation concerns
The Glamour Boys have won just one of their nine league matches this term and are hampered by their transfer ban as well as a growing injury list
Kaizer Chiefs goalkeeper Daniel Akpeyi is adamant that the Glamour Boys will not get sucked into a relegation battle this season.
It's almost unthinkable that a team of Chiefs' stature, the most popular club in South Africa, could ever be relegated.
But with the team currently sitting just one point above the drop zone with a third of the season played, such talk will likely persist if they don't start putting some positive results together.
"It's only normal for supporters and every loving person of Kaizer Chiefs to be panicking about our situation because things are not coming right," Akpeyi told the Chiefs media team.
"But its a big team and a big brand and we don't want to disgrace ourselves and embarrass the team as well.
"The confidence that I have is that this team cannot be relegated. I know from the response of the players, from their mentality right now, we are ready to take a different step into the next game. Relegation is not something we are panicking about at the moment."
Akpeyi was beaten twice last weekend as Amakhosi suffered a 2-0 home defeat to Maritzburg United, who had started the game bottom of the table.
Now the Soweto side are bracing for the challenge of another KwaZulu-Natal side; they take on ambitious AmaZulu at the Kings Park Stadium on Wednesday afternoon at 15:00.
Akpeyi believes that it's largely a change of mindset which can see Chiefs coming out of their slump.
"We have not been coming right with our decisions in games," the goalkeeper stated.
"Mentally right now we should be strong in going to the next game. Because we have quality players who we can rely upon. But for some time we have been disappointing ourselves.
"We are taking the pain to AmaZulu. It's high time we start making ourselves happy, and its high time we started making the fans happy.
"Every team wants to look into our situation and think ‘we can actually get three points or at least a point from Kaizer Chiefs.’
"I assure you that the players are working physically and mentally to make sure we do better. The AmaZulu game hopefully it will be a turn-around for us.
"We've spoken to ourselves and the only one strength we have for now is to keep on encouraging ourselves, that we are going to come right in the next game.
"We've talked to ourselves to try identify the problem, each and every game, and I think from the response of every single player, everything is coming right and we hope for a turn-around in the next game," the former Chippa United shot-stopper concluded.
