Steve invokes Mandela

It is now a case of damned if you do and damned if you don't for Kaizer Chiefs head coach Steve Komphela as he looks to turn things around.

Komphela has previously boasted that he has the support of management amidst the team's recent struggles. Now, however, Komphela has a different take and with the team having gone eight matches without a win, the former Bafana coach would rather take on full responsibility.

"Look at it this way, we are not getting the results and you are saying, 'I'm getting the support'. You know where you are pushing the pressure? Just think of it and you are indirectly putting pressure on the people who don't deserve this pressure," said Komphela yesterday. "And then if you say I don't get the support, ke kgomo ya moshate (whichever way you look at it is a double-edged sword). I'm doing my job honestly and I have to have the energy."

Chiefs have three matches before the end of the year and the first of those is against Bloemfontein Celtic at FNB Stadium tomorrow (7.30pm). As he put it, the 49-year-old mentor is "desperately" looking to turn things around and get back to winning ways. "The only right at Chiefs is to win matches, which I'm desperately looking for."

Chiefs supporters have been calling for Komphela to go, but yesterday he appeared and spoke like a man who is far from throwing in the towel. "Sometimes when I go through pressure and hell, it is about who do you represent.

"Sometimes you have to take the fire not because you deserved to be burned, but you take the fire on behalf of [the club] and when you suffer on behalf of [the club], you suffer with pleasure. When [Nelson] Mandela went 30 years in prison (it was actually 27) if he had known that he was doing it for Mandela, he would come out the first day or even then maybe, God forbid, committed suicide. But he knew he was fighting for a cause."