[Preview] LCS v Balestier Khalsa – Stopping the Top-Scorers in the League

Before every game, we will do a short preview and share some of our thoughts, and also predictions. Starting this season, all 3 of us at SailorFanTalk will give you our predictions, and we will track these over the course of the year. 3 points for exact scoreline predicted correctly, 2 points for predicting the winner and margin of victory correctly (but not the exact scoreline), and 1 point for predicting the outcome correctly (win, lose or draw).

Balestier Khalsa are the top-scorers in the SPL. Yes, you read that right.

It is very curious, but whenever you speak to anyone about Balestier, you would think they are the worst ever team (except Young Lions of course). Everyone automatically writes them off. This season is no different. I go around asking people for predictions all the time before Sailors’ games, and unsurprisingly, this match has had the most lopsided scoreline predictions so far. I’ve had people tell me 4-1, 6-0, 7-0. Which is strange, considering we are missing Kodai Tanaka, who was supposed to bear the goalscoring burden. People must really think that Balestier suck. But they really don’t.

But back to the headline – let’s dive deeper into this and take a look at what’s changed, because last season, they were the second-lowest scorers. Of course, Young Lions were the lowest scorers – no prizes for guessing that.

This Is Not Last Season’s Balestier Khalsa

So far this season, they have picked up 2 wins against the Young Lions and DPMM (after the Bruneian side went down to 10 men). However, they were also arguably unlucky to lose to Hougang after coming back from 2 goals down.

And they have scored 10 goals, did I say that already? That’s 1 more than us, and amazingly, Shuhei Hoshino, their reliable source of goals over the years has only scored 1 goal, and Masahiro Sugita has also not been playing ever since he got injured in the first game of the season.

If you take a look at the stats this season versus last season, you will see that not only are they scoring more, this seems to be a direct result of them passing more, passing the ball more accurately, and holding the ball much more than last season as well.

This could be a result of Alen Kozar’s signing giving them a bit more control in midfield and linking up the defence and attack better. This could also be a result of them not playing on the potato patch that is Toa Payoh’s stadium field anymore, which allows them to play a more controlled short passing game. The uptick in goals can also be attributed of course to the deadly duo of Daniel Goh and Ryoya Taniguchi – because as much as the passing is better this year, the xG is only marginally better, which indicates that the finishing this year is deadlier.

Daniel Goh and Ryoya Taniguchi – Dynamic Duo

This has been a good season for Daniel Goh. He has 2 goals and 1 assist, and has looked absolutely electric down the right flank. He seems to have really mastered the art of timing his runs this year, while his teammates are also searching for him much more regularly. Look out for this trademark move tomorrow if you’re at the stadium – facing their own goal, a pass will be played in to either Shuhei Hoshino or Ryoya Taniguchi dropping a little deeper to escape the attention of our centre-backs. Without looking, they will attempt to play a long diagonal in behind Chris van Huizen for Daniel Goh to chase. I can almost guarantee this will happen, especially if CvH pushes up into attack as he usually does.

Speaking of Ryoya Taniguchi, he has 4 goals and 1 assist from 4 games, and he is an absolute livewire on the pitch. Whether we win or not will depend a lot on whether we can keep him out. Last season, he scored a hattrick against us in their 5-3 win which effectively ended our fight for the title. This season he has shown no signs of stopping – scoring a perfect hattrick (left foot, right foot, header) against DPMM to snatch victory for them at Jalan Besar Stadium.

Taniguchi and Daniel Goh were also unlucky not to combine for a goal against Tampines, with Daniel Goh blazing over the bar when presented with a good chance in the box after a good run and pass from Taniguchi. Interestingly, Taniguchi has a slight preference towards playing on the right – so this combination will really test CvH and Super. See his heat map below for evidence of this.

Honourable mention also of course, to Ho Wai Loon, who has 2 goals and 2 assists this season. Will the old boy come back to haunt us?

Not All Doom and Gloom

However, perhaps now is the right time to also tell you that aside from the Young Lions, no side has conceded as many goals as Balestier Khalsa. Their 10 goals scored is matched by their 10 goals conceded.

Perhaps a result of their more attacking approach, Balestier have often been caught outnumbered at the back. Defending transitions does not seem to be their forte as well. This is what gives me quite a bit of hope going into tonight’s game. If we can counter-attack with pace as we did against Geylang and Tanjong Pagar, then we should be able to really hurt their defence.

An interesting stat from the official SPL site – our Sailors have the best conversion rate of any team this season (22%). I alluded to this in a previous article, saying that we are patient in attack and prefer to create better chances rather than shoot on sight – this perhaps explains this stat, and also why Kodai’s goals this season have been tap-ins. (Sigh, Kodai. Sigh. Poor, poor thing. Please get well soon.)

If we stay patient, the movement of our attackers should be good enough to pull Balestier apart and create some really good goalscoring chances.

Conclusion

We have to score more than Balestier do. It may sound like a DUH thing to say, but this has the potential to be a real shootout considering that we have not looked the most convincing in defence, and Balestier have hit 8 goals past us in our last 2 games.

COME ON YOU BOYS IN BLUE!!!

Score Prediction

As mentioned above, this will be a continuing feature as the season goes on. Joseph, Ethan, and myself will predict the scores, and track our success in a table. Stay tuned to find out who is the prediction king!

3 points for exact scoreline predicted correctly, 2 points for predicting the winner and margin of victory correctly (but not the exact scoreline), and 1 point for predicting the outcome correctly (win, lose or draw).

Eddy’s prediction: Sailors 4 Balestier 2

Ethan’s prediction: Sailors 4 Balestier 1

Joseph’s prediction: Sailors 3 Balestier 2

And here’s the leaderboard –

Written by Eddy Hirono

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