Kaizer Chiefs head coach Fernando Da Cruz has refused to concede that his team is out of the title race.

This comes after Amakhosi‘s 2-1 defeat to Orlando Pirates in the Soweto Derby this past weekend. A loss sees Chiefs 11 points behind Pirates after nine matches played.

Da Cruz, though, feels there are still 21 matches to play and his team are not out of the title picture yet.

“I will say that it is more difficult today after this game but the PSL is a long journey so there is 21 fixtures remaining but when we recover our injured players, because we have been unlucky since the start of the season, we will have more consistency in our performance because we had a lot of draws this season but we deserved to win this game but because of our lack of expereince we didn’t win this game but it will turn in our favour when we recover our full squad,” said da Cruz as per SABC Sport.

Da Cruz takes lesson from Chiefs loss to Pirates

Da Cruz said the Soweto Derby was a good experiene for some of the younger players in the team.

“It’s a good question – we must use these types of games to grow players and to reach the next steps. The players must understand that even though we play well, it’s not enough – we must reach the next steps now. So, we must continue to work, but it takes time. We can’t achieve this overnight – we can’t gain experience from one day to the next. We must continue to learn from competitions of different levels.”

Da Cruz’s next task with Chiefs will be the Carling Knockout as he seeks to win his first trophy in South Africa.