December 2022 – SailorFanTalk

Kodai Tanaka – Massive Upgrade?

3 Comments / Daily Musings, Player Profiles, Transfers / Eddy Hirono

So it’s been confirmed. After weeks of rumours, the club announced that Christmas did bring us the marquee signing we had been hoping for – Kodai Tanaka, Albirex top-scorer, and reigning SPL Player of the Year. I don’t think you need stats to tell you how good a signing this could be for the Sailors, but for those who didn’t watch him much this season, I hope this article will help you find out what you can expect from him next season. Positions played If you just looked at the number of goals he scored, you would be convinced that Kodai was a pure striker. 33 goals in the league, and a further 6 in the Singapore Cup, from 33 games – that is some tally. But he’s not just a pure striker. For those who watched Albirex games, he was quite often deployed on the left wing, so that either Ilhan Fandi or Tadanari Lee could play as the central striker. You will see that he spent about 41% of the time starting on the left wing. This versatility may be good for us moving forward. Imagine him and Song interchanging positions between central striker and left wing, or between central striker and false 9 – a truly tantalising prospect. Shooting Now we take a look at his shooting statistics – perhaps the most important for strikers. 39 goals from 33 games (in all competitions) takes him to a very impressive average of 1.18 goals per game. This is more than league top-scorer Boris Kopitovic, who had 41 goals in 36 games (in all competitions), and thus clocks in an average of 1.14 goals per game. Encouragingly for the Sailors, it is almost double the 0.63 goals per game contributed by Kim Shin-Wook. When we take a deeper look at the statistics, you will also see that only 3 of his goals are penalties, whereas Boris scored 8 from the spot (including 1 miss). It gets better when you see that he has got 39 goals from an xG of 26. He has comfortably outperformed his xG, and we Sailors fans will be hoping this is not a one-off. If you look at Shin-Wook’s xG of 28, and his total goal tally of 22, it somewhat confirms the eye-test that our top-scorer this season should perhaps have scored more goals. He did miss some sitters this season, none more memorable than the one against the Young Lions. Given that LCS created the most chances this season in the league, the hope is that the addition of Kodai Tanaka will lead to more goals. Take a look at his shot map below, and Sailors fans, I implore you to imagine what a “fox-in-the-box” like Kodai will do with the service from Maxime, Diego, Hami and Shawal. Assists and Chance Creation If you look at the chart below, you will see that Kodai is going to be much more involved in team play than Shin-Wook was. Perhaps the statistics may be slightly skewed by the fact that Kodai played left-wing quite a bit, but his total of 10 assists is pretty tasty considering he already has 39 goals. This shows that he is not just a one-dimensional striker. He also compares favourably to Shin-Wook and Boris when it comes to his passing figures – in fact he makes quite a lot more key passes compared to both of them. Without the use of stats, I think Sailors fans will also feel that the addition of someone more mobile to our frontline may suit us more. Throughout the season, there have always been complaints about Shin-Wook’s lack of mobility. Many Sailors fans have also wondered what it would be like if Song was used up top more than Shin-Wook – given that Song was the spearhead of our attack when we famously beat Daegu FC in our maiden AFC Champions League campaign. Perhaps now we will get to see what this looks like for us. Teamwork/Pressing In the modern game, pressing/defending usually starts from the front, and looking at these stats, it is pretty encouraging to see that Kodai pretty much outstrips both Boris and Shin-Wook when it comes to ball recoveries – especially the “ball recoveries in opponent’s half” stat. There is no better place to win the ball than in your opponent’s half. He also puts in the tackles and goes into many aerial challenges, and that is exactly what fans want to see. Hopefully this increased mobility and pressing from the front will lead to even more chances for the Sailors next season. Conclusion I don’t think I need to elaborate much after showing you all the statistics – Kodai looks like he will be a brilliant signing. There’s something also to be said about his resilience, because he played every league game. If he stays fit, this will be a top, top signing. The other side of the coin of course, is that Albirex also lose their top-scorer. Given that they also lose Ilhan Fandi for next year, Albirex must hope that they manage to find someone just as dynamic as Kodai for next season (sadly I wouldn’t bet against them unearthing another gem from Japan). They surely cannot pin all their hopes on the ageing Tadanari Lee. Not only have we strengthened our ranks – we have weakened our title rivals. To end off, I will just comment on this IG Stories post by Zia-Ul Raushan, who likens Kodai’s arrival to that of Robin van Persie leaving Arsenal for Manchester United, and propelling them to the title all those years ago. This echos Kodai’s comments in his first interview for us, where he said that he wants to be league champion with LCS, and also win the Golden Boot. I think I speak for all Sailors fans when I say, I hope Raushan and Kodai are both right! WELCOME KODAI! はじめまして! (Written by Eddy, with stats taken from football.instatscout.com) Photo taken from lioncitysailorsfc.sg

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Rusyaidi is a Sailor – More Fight, More Bite?

1 Comment / Daily Musings, Player Profiles, Transfers / Eddy Hirono

Earlier this week, we announced the signing of Tanjong Pagar United midfielder Rusyaidi Salime. Like the rest of our signings, this one has been rumoured for very long. What does he bring to our midfield? His comments upon joining us have been very positive – “I won’t back out of any challenges and you can expect me to be a tough yet fair player on the pitch. I will try my best to win every challenge as I possibly can and to stop my team from conceding goals,” “I’m someone who always gives my 100% for the team. I will work hard for the club, the fans and my teammates – let’s win something together in the season ahead.” Sounds like the kind of player fans will get behind – do the stats bear that out for him? Hunger and Bite Recalling a conversation I had with LCS staff about a month back, they mentioned that the club was going to get hungrier, leaner, meaner players. I think nobody fits this profile more than Rusyaidi Salime. Let’s take a look at the stats. Right off the bat, you can see that for two years running, Rusyaidi has been in a lot of foul trouble. 7 yellow cards last season is the second-highest, while his 8 yellow cards in the 2021 season ranked him top of the pile. Considering 2021 was a short season where he made 18 appearances, the yellow-card tally may be a bit worrying. A little too much bite? Perhaps the way Tanjong Pagar play factors into that as well – given that 5 of the top 10 yellow card recipients are their players. What is encouraging is that there seems to be some improvement from 2021 to 2022. If you look at the stats below (which include his appearances in the SG Cup), you will see that he was involved in more challenges and attempted more tackles this year compared to last. However, he has only got 1 more yellow card, and conceded fewer fouls (29 to 36), perhaps showing that he is beginning to pick his tackles abit better. Goal Threat Of course, given that the Sailors are also a team that expect to play attacking football and dominate most games we are involved in, passing and attacking stats are worth looking at. Does Rusyaidi pose a goal threat? The simple answer is “No”. He has scored just once in his last 2 seasons. Last season he had an xG of 0.79 and he scored 1 goal, a smart sliding finish in the box against Tampines Rovers (watch at 49 seconds). I’ll give you some food for thought though. Despite not scoring with his long shots, in the past 2 seasons, on occasion, set piece experts such as Raihan Rahman and Luiz Junior have allowed him to take direct free kicks at goal. Perhaps he cracks them in during training and we SPL fans have just not been lucky enough to see his hidden talent? That may be the eternal optimist in me speaking – there’s so far not been any evidence to suggest that goalscoring is one of his abilities. He certainly doesn’t lack confidence though, and on occasion, he cuts in to his weaker foot to strike them from range – so far, none of these have been goals, or even shots that trouble the keeper. Passing Let’s start by getting the obvious out of the way. Rusyaidi is no Shahdan Sulaiman – but who is? That is just an unfair expectation to place on our new signing. Shahdan is one of Singapore’s greatest midfielders and who continues to dominate games even at his age. Shahdan’s passing percentage from last season was a whopping 88%, and he attempted an average of 49 passes per game in the league (double of Rusyaidi’s 24 passes per game). Rusyaidi is not a like-for-like replacement for Shahdan. However, for a guy who is known more as a destroyer, or a box-to-box midfielder, Rusyaidi’s 79% passing accuracy is decent. He has also played 16 key passes, which compares similarly to Shahdan’s 18 key passes in 2022. All-Action Midfielder? I wish InStat gave me information on distance covered by players. I’d imagine that Rusyaidi would score quite highly on that. The eye test tells me that he’s an all-action midfielder and he’s everywhere on the pitch. If we take a look at the heat map data for him, and compare it to that of Shahdan Sulaiman, it’s interesting to note that they both have a bias towards the right-hand side of the pitch. Also, you can clearly see that Rusyaidi is involved a lot more in deeper positions on the pitch – whether this is something that he can adapt to when he joins a more attacking Sailors side, that remains to be seen. Conclusion I think Rusyaidi is an exciting signing. From the eye-test, he is an all-action midfielder who likes to get involved in all areas of the pitch. Tanjong Pagar United was a team that did not dominate the ball as much as the Sailors did last season, and as such, was a team that spent a lot of time on the counter-attack, or defending counter-attacks. Last season, one of the Sailors’ weaknesses I felt was in stopping counter-attacks early, and I feel that Rusyaidi’s bravery in diving into tackles, coupled with what seems to be an improvement in choosing the right moments to tackle, may reap some rewards for the Sailors this year. He has a tendency to really snap into challenges once the opponent has miscontrolled the ball a little – give him a slight opening, and the ball is gone, the attack is snuffed out. That’s what we hope he can bring to us next year. His passing percentage, while not astounding, is decent enough. If he can get the ball to our more dominant ball-players such as Diego Lopes or Hami Syahin, we should still be fine in the attacking department. To end off,

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Superman, Out

Leave a Comment / Daily Musings, Player Profiles, Transfers / Eddy Hirono

What has been rumoured for a month or so now has finally been confirmed by Albirex Niigata (S) – Hassan Sunny has joined the reigning champions. We had confirmation a few weeks back that he would not be retained, along with Shahdan, Gabriel, Naqi, Iqram, and Faris. Then the rumour mill started churning and there was news that he would be joining Albirex. You could tell there was probably some bad blood, as not only did Hassan not show up at all for the Dortmund game, which would have allowed us a chance to say our final goodbye to him, he tweeted this on 25 Nov 2022. It is not the most subtle, but in case you’ve not had your morning coffee yet, it says “The ship has sunk”. We now know of course, that he was perhaps referring to the wide-ranging cuts that were about to happen across all levels in the club, both in the playing and non-playing staff. I wrote about it sometime back too, and expressed my opinion that far from it being a “strategic reset”, it was probably just cost-cutting measures. You can check it out here. But let’s stick to the football chat and take a conscious step away from our off-the-field troubles. What does this transfer bring to Albirex, our closest rivals from last year? And does it weaken us alot? Takahiro Koga v Hassan Sunny Age – Koga is 24 next year while Hassan will be 39. For an outfield player, 39 might be a problem, but as we’ve seen with Hassan over the years, he just seems to get better with age. I remember during his Home United days, the other players would tell me stories about how Hassan is very professional and always looks after himself – sleeping early, waking up early to get some stretching in, and sometimes even dragging the other boys along with him to do that when on overseas trips. This of course meant that they would have to give up any night activities because Hassan would call them up at 6am or so to drag them out to stretch. Given his professionalism, age truly is just a number for him, and he still pulled off plenty of improbable saves last season. In fact, one might say that Hassan’s age works in his favour in that he is more experienced than Koga, who does have an error in him sometimes, especially due to his position during offensive phases (more on this later). Statistics – Comparing the two when it comes to percentage of shots saved, Hassan comes out ahead, at 68%, compared to Koga’s 64%. This stat is all the more impressive considering that Hassan’s stats include our AFC Champions League campaign where we played against much better opposition as compared to our SPL teams. Another stat that jumps out at me is the number of “supersaves” that are made by the respective keepers. Hassan’s 1.19 supersaves a game is considerably more than Koga’s 0.76. Of course, what is defined as a supersave is subjective and depends on how Instat classifies them – but I think just based on the eye-test, we Sailors fans can remember numerous difficult saves that Hassan was required to make last year. He more than deserves to be called Superman. Playing style – The last comparison is playing style. I think from what we’ve seen so far, Hassan is more than an adequate replacement for Koga. I think that he will be an upgrade on Koga. But how will he slot in to the Albirex style of play? I think one thing to note is that Koga leaves his line way more often to claim the ball than Hassan. If you look at the stats comparison above, you will see that Hassan averages 1.09 GK exits a game, while Koga averages 1.79 GK exits a game. The eye-test confirms this as well. Hassan rarely leaves his line. Another thing to compare is the ball touches map below. You can clearly see that Koga is a more “adventurous” keeper – for better or for worse. Fans of the SPL will know that Koga has been caught in no-man’s land on more than a few occasions in the past two seasons, which have led to embarrassing goals or moments. High-risk, high-reward I suppose – sometimes coming out to claim the ball can relieve the pressure on your defence and stop potentially dangerous situations. Conclusion What does this mean for Albirex and for Hassan? Well of course this comparison is not conclusive, but I think Hassan may need to adapt a little to the Albirex playstyle. He will be expected to shuffle more across the box to pick up passes from his defenders, and then play the ball out. His defenders may also need to adapt to a keeper who doesn’t come out as much. Overall though, there is no doubting that Hassan will be a good signing for Albirex. I don’t think there is a significant gulf between the quality of Koga and Hassan, despite Koga’s inconsistency this season, but where the impact may be felt more keenly is that it clearly weakens the Sailors. The drop-off from Hassan to whoever is going to replace him is going to be a large one, especially because Izwan is out with an ACL injury. We will do a statistical comparison when the replacement is announced (rumoured to be Zharfan Rohaizad), but I think the national team pecking order tells its own story – Hassan is far and away the best goalkeeper in our land. TL;DR – Hassan to Albirex will strengthen them slightly, but will weaken the Sailors by a lot. Sad. (Written by Eddy, with stats taken from football.instatscout.com)

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Blue Is the Colour

2 Comments / Daily Musings / Eddy Hirono

If you’re reading this, you probably already can guess what I am sad about. Developments in recent days involving the Sailors have really left me scratching my head and wondering – what is the direction for our Sailors moving forward, and why has all this change happened? If you need some context, perhaps read this article in the Straits Times (https://www.straitstimes.com/sport/football-stars-key-backroom-staff-depart-lion-city-sailors). Fan favourites Faris Ramli, Gabriel Quak, Hassan Sunny, and Shahdan Sulaiman were among 6 players confirmed to be released, along with Iqram Rifqi and Naqiuddin Eunos. Of course, the Straits Times perhaps chose to focus on the four bigger names because they are some of the “highest-paid local footballers” – implying that the motivation for these decisions was mostly financial. But was it? Cost-cutting? Or something more? So the Straits Times subtly implies that it has to do with costs. This is a natural inference, given that SEA and Shopee have been laying off staff, pulling out of markets, and having their financial woes reported all over for large parts of this year. In fact, we tried our best to see for ourselves what the situation was like, when we wrote an article and released a podcast (https://sailorfantalk.com/2022/11/19/should-fans-be-worried-about-forrest-li-sea-losing-money/). We tried to remain optimistic back then – and perhaps that was the responsible thing to do, especially when we didn’t have any evidence to speculate the worst. But the worst has materialised. Besides the players being released, a significant number of backroom staff have been released as well. This was the saddest part of it all for me, but more on that later. The statement put out by LCS (https://www.lioncitysailorsfc.sg/sailors-ceo-chun-liang-a-rollercoaster-2022-but-smooth-seas-never-made-a-skilled-sailor/) suggests that this is a “strategic reset”, and no mention is made about cost-cutting. In fact, more mention was made about how the failures this year have led to the club taking drastic action. A few players I can understand, but backroom staff at all levels? Besides those mentioned in the article, I know of several other staff who were let go, or voluntarily left. If you talk about the need for a reset, why is there a need for Logistics staff to go? I can’t really think of a reason for needing to change things around in the Logistics department. Is there even a need for a reset? And then we look at whether there is even a need for a reset – or such a drastic one. This is a team of playing staff and backroom staff who not just won the title last season, but also performed pretty well in the AFC Champions League barely months ago. On the pitch, the players did not look out of place alongside Daegu FC’s players. We beat them once 3-0, and then in the second game, lost it in pretty extraordinary circumstances. When we came back, we also managed to avoid the pitfalls that Tampines Rovers went through last year. The team’s physical workload seemed to have been well-managed, and they did not look fatigued when they returned to league action. This was a major problem for Tampines last year as they really struggled when they returned from their Champions League campaign, so I was glad that it was not repeated in LCS. In fact, we went into the final months of the season with a good lead over Albirex Niigata (S). We will dedicate a whole article and video to our speculation as to why we did not win the title, but suffice to say, it seemed that for a long time this season, the playing and non-playing staff seemed to have functioned at a pretty high standard. To cut almost all of them seems pretty drastic. And of course, I think I might be ignoring the elephant in the room here. It seems pretty apparent to me (and many fans) that in this “reset”, it seems that one of the key elements of our failure last season, was how quickly things went to shit after Coach Kim was sacked and Coach Luka took over. I am not blaming him entirely for it – I do think the players have to take some responsibility for this as well, but how come it seems there are no consequences for him? Who was let go? Many people were let go, but let’s focus on a few of them. Take Firdaus Massar and Mario Jovanovic. These are coaches who have worked with world-class stars – Firdaus with EPL clubs like Liverpool and Wolves, and Jovanovic who was Strength & Conditioning Coach with the Croatian national youth teams. When they came in, Firdaus said – “The Sailors are currently working to put in place a well-structured sports science department, and have improved their backend and technical capabilities immensely, which is a clear sign that they are serious about becoming one of the best teams in the region.” Now that you cut both, what gives? What happens to this “well-structured sports science department”? Are we promoting staff from the academy? And if you do that, are they qualified enough to do the job? Even if they are, then what happens to our much-vaunted academy? Are they double-hatting? So many questions, so few answers. The “Staff” section on the Sailors website has also seemingly been removed. Then our physios. With Kak Fizah gone, will there be a full-time physio taking charge of the players, or are we moving back to the system in the past where we had team doctors who did not work on the premises full-time? If she is replaced, will it be someone of a similar stature? Is there someone in the local scene of a similar stature and with the depth of experience dealing with professional footballers as she does? And I haven’t even discussed those who voluntarily left. Although some did move on to better opportunities, I wonder if this is all a coincidence, and if it is a symptom of something happening internally that we fans should be worrying about. What it means to support a club When

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