JURY'S OUT

CHRISTIAN SAILE SHOWED GLIMPSES OF PROMISE IN HIS HALF-SEASON AT KAIZER CHIEFS LAST TERM, BUT WAS IT ENOUGH?

- Mazola Molefe

Kaizer Chiefs had gone through an exhaustive process to find a striker when Christian Saile landed on the Naturena doorstep in January - signed for an undisclosed fee from Zambia's Nchanga Rangers. Was he what coach Arthur Zwane had been looking for?

The jury was out. The Amakhosi mentor made conflicting statements about Bonfils-Caleb Bimenyimana, another foreign forward, at the start of the 2022/23 season as his tenure was taking off.

"He is not what we are looking for." he had told journalists at the launch of the new DStv Premiership campaign in August after the Burundian international had already spent several weeks on trial at Chiefs.

The Glamour Boys ended up giving Bimenyimana a two-year contract before the transfer deadline.

Zwane was a lot more measured with his comments when the Soweto giants confirmed the arrival of Saile, a 23-year-old from DR Congo known to be an explosive striker with an eye for goal.

Like Bimenyimana, he had also made his way to South Africa to be assessed by Zwane and his technical team. This was the coach's feedback once Saile had put pen to paper:

"He is a scoring machine; he has been scoring goals for his previous clubs and we just want him to continue where he left off," the Chiefs mentor said a few days after the club had confirmed a deal running until June 2026.