Kaizer Chiefs coach Arthur Zwane believes defender Siyabonga Ngezana will quickly recover from the terrible game he had at the Loftus Stadium on Saturday where he gifted Mamelodi Sundowns their first two goals in Chiefs record 4-0 defeat in the DStv Premiership tie against the defending champions.

Ngezana first failed to trap the ball inside his area and Sundowns striker Gaston Sirino pressed him and scored the opening goal in the 6th minute. It only took 11 minutes for Ngezana to make his second error, this time fouling striker Peter Shalulile inside the area.

The Namibian dusted himself off and slotted his first goal of the season before doubling his tally in the second half. New Sundowns striker Ethiopian Nasir Ahmed scored the Brazilians’ fourth goal with 14 minutes remaining.

After the game Zwane was asked what he told Ngezana at halftime when he decided to replace him with Njabulo Ngcobo.

“If you look at how it happened, it happened early in the game and then from there he couldn’t recover. It’s unlike Siya,” said Zwane.

“Siya is one player in a one-versus-one situation who is one of the best defenders we have. For example, the goal that we conceded, I think the fourth where they played the ball down the line on the left, in those situations we know that Siya will come out on top.

“Unfortunately Siya wasn’t himself today. I think because of the knee (injury) as well, he actually came to me after the game on Tuesday, which he couldn’t finish, and said, ‘You know what? — I’m not 100% OK but I will give my best’.

“I said to him try and if you can’t we’ll obviously bring in someone else. We didn’t want to break that combination of him and Zitha (Kwinika), more especially with the kind of the game we were coming to play here.

“Unfortunately he was not himself and he was not at his best and he had to commit that error that I think also killed his confidence. But these things happen in football.

“I’m not going to kill him for that. We’ll try and help him to lift his spirit up at training. Many other players are still going to commit such mistakes and we’ll move on. I think we’ll get it with time.

“So he mustn’t worry about that ... that’s part of the game. We all make mistakes. Even the referee (Victor Gomes) made a mistake. He gave Zitha the yellow card and it was Siya (who committed a foul) and it wasn’t even a foul. I don’t know, it’s one of those things.

“But what I’m trying to say is that we’re all human beings and we’re bound to make mistakes and it’s part of the game. We learn from those mistakes and move on.”

Chiefs, who have now lost two of their first three league matches, will host newcomers and early log leaders Richards Bay at the Moses Mabhida Stadium at 8pm on Saturday.