Kaizer Chiefs coach Nasreddine Nabi has made an honest admission about Orlando Pirates’ domestic and continental form after going down to their fierce rivals in the Soweto derby at FNB Stadium on Saturday.

In contrast to their rivals, Chiefs have struggled to maintain consistency under the Tunisian mentor this season. Amakhosi haven’t won two consecutive matches in the Betway Premiership since last doing so in September at the beginning of the ongoing campaign.

Despite falling short in the derby, Nabi’s charges turned up on the day and showed intentions to secure all the maximum points. The former AS FAR coach was left impressed by his players’ display as he identified areas of improvement.

“The first thing that I told the players in the changing room was to congratulate them because they followed the plan we had for the game. Obviously, there were some moments where we lacked communication and concentration which led to some opportunities for the opponents,” he said.

Nabi, who has been tasked with restoring Chiefs’ glory days, admits that the Buccaneers are currently the best team on the African continent and acknowledges that claiming the Bucs’ scalp was not going to be an easy task.

“But we knew that it wasn’t going to be easy to play a team that is practically at the top of African football at the moment, but we played with belief, with confidence with the DNA of a big club like Kaizer Chiefs,” admitted the Chiefs coach.

“It’s frustrating to lose in such circumstances but there’s a game in three days, we can’t just keep complaining, we need to move on and concentrate for the next game.”

The 59-year-old tactician went on to pour cold water on the suggestions that his troops staged a much better performance because they were playing a high-stakes match, stating that it’s down to the hard work of the technical team.

“It’s true that the performance was somehow good, but we believe that it wasn’t good because it was the derby, we believe that it was good because the players are progressing and are getting where we want them to be,” Nabi continued.

“And for the next games, we have players coming back from injury like Ashley du Preez, Wandile Duba, and Dillan Solomons, that’s going to increase the level of competition and the level of performance for everyone. A player like Ashley has a good history in the derby since he joined the team.”

Chiefs will entertain AmaZulu at the FNB Stadium on Tuesday in a meeting that will see them come up against their loyal servant Arthur Zwane, who served as a player and coach at Naturena.  The Soweto giants have only lost once to Usuthu in their last five encounters in the league.