[Preview] Tampines Rovers v LCS – Stopping the Top Team in the League

If you read the title of this post and felt it was familiar, you’re right. Our last post was titled “Stopping the Top-Scorers in the League”. Balestier Khalsa came in to the last game as top-scorers of the league with a swashbuckling style of football that ensured goals at both ends, but after a convincing 3-0 win against them, we are now the top-scorers in the league, with 12 goals after 5 games. Leaving aside the 4-0 defeat against Albirex, we have scored three goals in every game and generally looked comfortable, if not fantastic.

Why are Tampines the top team in the league though? Through a combination of watching the matches, combing through the stats, and talking to my fellow fans of the SPL, I had hoped to conclude that it’s because of luck. However, it really isn’t. They are controlling their games well, scoring goals, and Faris has really found his groove. Bad news for us.

Tampines in Control

There’s a whole bunch of stats up there for you to take notice of, but I try to focus on Tampines’s very impressive average Opponent’s xG of 0.67. This probably goes a long way to explaining how they have kept all those clean sheets, including against Albirex. Their defence looks a lot more settled than at the same stage last season, where they had already conceded 9 in their first 5 games. Credit that to the addition of Milos Zlatkovic maybe, but my opinion is that it’s more than just that. Tampines are in control.

They have a very impressive ball possession percentage of 63%, and an accurate passing percentage of 87%. This alone does not always tell the full story as there are teams that achieve high passing percentages because they just pass the ball aimlessly around the back without actually going forward or trying to create anything. This is why I included the last stat in the table above – entrances to the final third. This shows that as much as Tampines like to knock the ball around at the back, they also do get forward, and do in fact get the ball into the final third far more often than the Sailors do.

It is pretty telling as well, that going into this match, Zharfan Rohaizad has the most saves of any goalkeeper this season. In previous articles, I gave praise to the Sailors defence for mostly limiting shots from our opponents to speculative efforts from outside the box, but conceding a high number of shots on target can still potentially bite us in the ass, as it leaves us vulnerable to any number of things that could happen from those shots – keeper blunders, rebound goals, a sense of unease spreading through the defence and the fans, etc.

Faris Ram(li) Has Got it Going On

Faris Ramli is a man on fire, and a man with a point to prove. Before we talk about his goalscoring achievements this season, I feel I am obliged to say that Faris is a real gem of a person. He was released by the Sailors but unlike others (or maybe just one player) who were released, he was professional till the end, and never moaned and whined about not getting a new contract. I mean, that’s what a contract is, isn’t it? It works both ways. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, a long contract is a double-edged sword for a player. While it guarantees financial security, it can also mean that they will find it hard to get offers for them when they are playing well, because the club can just point to the contract and say “nope, if you want my guy, you’re gonna have to pay what we want”. Even if there were some hard feelings about not being retained, Faris thanked the fans, still maintains a good relationship with us, and bade farewell to us with a cracking goal against Dortmund.

(I am just jinxing myself, aren’t I? He is gonna score a last-minute winner, run the length of OTH and do a knee slide right in front of the LCS fans? Hahahaha hope not!)

But back to the football. Faris Ramli, 4 goals in 5 games, what a start. Add to that 2 assists as well to Boris Kopitovic, and you can see that he is really in top form. For context, Faris only scored a total of 4 goals last season for LCS (including cup games). I am happy for him that he has been able to rehabilitate his career and his reputation a little, even if it sucks that he is doing it in the black and yellow of Tampines Rovers.

Let’s hope he doesn’t score tonight, and if he does, let’s hope he doesn’t celebrate it that hard.

Diego and Maxime

But it’s not all doom and gloom, is it? Of course it isn’t.

This will be the first time that Diego and Maxime start a match against Tampines together, and as far as I know, they are not weighed down by any injuries or niggles. This is something that we should be excited about. As much as Tampines’ defence has improved, we all know what Diego and Maxime can do together. Just ask Daegu last season.

This season, the pair of them have started off really well too and are both at their creative best. I’ll let the numbers speak for themselves.

Those stats are not even funny. They lead the league in terms of accurate key passes – meaning passes that lead to a shot being taken. The gulf between Maxime and the rest of the league seems funny, but it’s true. And we all know how difficult teams have found it to keep this pair at bay.

With a combined total of 8 assists between them, I am very excited to see what they can do against this new-look Tampines defence. I only wish we had Kodai Tanaka to gobble up these chances. If Kodai had been playing, I think the whole focus of this article changes and I’d talk alot more about why Tampines should really fear us. We have a new striker on board, Bernie Ibini, but I know nothing about him, so I shan’t waste your time trying to educate you about him. You know the drill, go to Youtube, google some compilation of highlights set to trashy music, and then we can all salivate about our new signing, and then when we watch him in action, we can feel a little disappointed that he cannot match up to his Youtube compilation – but who can? Haha. Let’s just wait and see what comes! I am not sure he is going to start tonight given that the Straits Times has said he is still awaiting final paperwork and he has not played competitive football for more than a year.

Conclusion

This is gonna be a heck of a tough game. But I am always optimistic, and thus I feel that Sailors can win here. Recent history seems to back us up as well. 4 wins in the last 5 games against Tampines, except the last one where we had an injury crisis and were missing all our key players.

We managed to keep a clean sheet against the top-scoring team in the league last time out, so this time we are going to try to score goals against the second-best defence in the league. Different task, but hopefully the same outcome – a comfortable win, without any police reports this time.

COME ON YOU BOYS IN BLUE!!!

Score Prediction

Joseph, Ethan, and myself 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: Tampines 1 Sailors 4

Ethan’s prediction: Tampines 1 Sailors 4

Joseph’s prediction: Tampines 1 Sailors 3

And here’s the leaderboard –

Written by Eddy Hirono

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