March 16, 2023

There were a few hairy moments, but in the end, the result never felt in doubt. Let’s hit you with a stat attack first – which may make it look like it was abit less comfortable than it was. Now that you’ve had some time to make your own snap judgments of the respective teams and what they did well, I leave you with a few thoughts. Zharfan’s Impact on the Game Zharfan had a good game. He saved 9 shots, and while most of them were from non-threatening areas, every shot/chance/interaction does present a keeper with the chance to screw up – and he did not. The same could not be said of Ridhwan Fikri, who had a very nervy game. Not only did he concede a penalty, his ill-advised rushes out of the box, coupled with the lack of composure in those situations, led to pretty disastrous results. Some of these were punished, some weren’t. He could also arguably have done better with Hafiz Nor and Rasaq’s shots, given that he managed to touch them. Back to Zharfan, look at the areas where those shots were coming in. Of the 9 saves, only 4 of these were from inside the box, and 3 of them were from reallly far out. 1 shot stands out in particular, and that’s the dot that is right next to the penalty spot. This was when Iqbal Hussain was given way too much time to sweep a shot on target, but luckily for us, he hit it tamely and Zharfan caught the ball well. For the other 3 shots on target in the box, the Geylang players were surrounded by Sailors defenders, so the angle did not favour the Geylang players. Zharfan will have tougher tests to come, but it is definitely encouraging for him to pick up his 1st clean sheet, especially after the chastening result last week against Albirex and the mistake he made against DPMM. Sailors Stay Patient and Create Better Chances While Geylang sought to test Zharfan from everywhere, you can see that the Sailors opted for a more patient approach, waiting to get into the box before shooting. This in the end contributed to the Sailors win. You can see this in the xG comparison between the teams, which stands at 2.5 for the Sailors v 0.94 for Geylang. Even if you remove 0.75 from the Sailors tally because it is inflated by the penalty award, it still is a healthy differential of 1.75 v 0.94. It was also important especially I feel, for Chris van Huizen to finally get off the mark in terms of assists. More and more you will see in games that opponents like to collapse their defence into the box, and stay compact and narrow to avoid being sliced open with a Maxime/Hami pass, or a Diego/Shawal dribble. It is then important in such games that Chris is able to punish these defences for defending just the width of their box, with his trusty crossing. Chris is a rare Singaporean player who can get some real whip on his crosses whether on his left or his right foot. On Wednesday, the second goal was created by patient play from two players – Adam Swandi and Maxime Lestienne. First, Lestienne passed up a chance to shoot, when Ridhwan rushed out and made a hash of his clearance. See below. He could have chosen to shoot from there, but he did not. He dribbled all the way into the box, and then instead of whipping a blind cross into the danger zone, he had the presence of mind to pick out Adam Swandi on the edge of the box. Even from here, you could have expected Adam Swandi to perhaps try to curl a shot in to the far post – but he turns that down, and instead waits for Chris van Huizen to provide support on the left. CvH is not even in the frame above yet, but Adam buys time and then plays him in for him to cross to Diego to score. This pattern of trying to create better shooting chances was also repeated in the last goal of the game, where Maxime turned down a chance to shoot, and instead squared the ball back for Rasaq to smack into the net. In light of Kodai potentially missing the whole season, the Sailors may need to continue creating high-quality chances, rather than quantity, now that we lack an elite finisher. Shoutout to Bill Mahmadou Quick shoutout to Bill Mahmadou, who only played half a game, but whose contribution indirectly led to the first two goals being scored. If you watch the highlights of 1-0 and 2-0, you will see that it seems like Bill was targeted by Geylang as a pressing trigger. Each time he got the ball, two or three Geylang players converged on him, trying to put pressure on him. This didn’t work as intended, as both times he managed to get a crucial pass away – first to Diego Lopes in acres of space, and then to Maxime Lestienne for him to launch an aerial through-pass behind the high backline (who had pressed up also to support Geylang’s press). It was incredible footwork and composure, especially for someone so young and so tall/big. Bill also gave the supporters something to cheer about when he absolutely bodied a Geylang winger into touch with a strong bodycheck. He not only passed the eye-test, he put up some really encouraging stats as well, despite only playing 45min. The stats back up what we see. He was efficient in using the ball, won most of his challenges, and even got in the occasional dribble. A very encouraging outing for the big man! Hopefully his injury is not serious, because he is one of the few U23 players we have who has really cemented a first-team spot. With Nur Adam also out, we will need Bill to stay fit. Frivolous Thought of the