Kaizer Chiefs coach Arthur Zwane has explained why Khama Billiat only featured for a few minutes before he was subbed off in Saturday’s game against Cape Town City.

The Zimbabwean marked his return to action in the match after spending the last six months nursing a groin injury.

He started on the bench and came on in the 42nd minute, replacing injured Ashley du Preez.

Surprisingly, the former Warriors international didn’t return in the second.

According to Zwane, Billiat was the only option to replace Du Preez but he wasn’t 100% fit.

The gaffer decided to replace him as a precautionary measure after the ZPC started limping.

“It is sad when you see a quality player like Khama suffering from injuries,” Zwane said, as quoted by IDiski Times.

“He was actually supposed to come back two weeks back. We anticipated that he should be ready just before the [Nedbank Cup] semi-finals, and we wanted to build him up.

“To be quite honest, even today, if we had all the other players available, we wouldn’t have risked Khama. The plan also was to play him 20 minutes and then build him up going forward.

“Unfortunately, we found ourselves in a situation where we didn’t have a striker when we lost Ash, and we needed a player of his [Billiat’s] quality.

“I even said to him, ‘listen I don’ no’t want you to make too many runs because now we are trying to build you. We need your quality in holding the ball and connecting with whoever that is coming and then creating space’.

“We didn’t expect him to be explosive as we know him. It only took him 15 minutes or less on the field, and actually when I saw him limping, I said ‘here we go again’.”