[Preview] Young Lions v LCS – Normal Service to Resume

The last time we met Young Lions, it was an absolute disaster. If you want to relive it, you can check out our post-match thoughts, and tactical analysis back then. We struggled to create any really good chances, and considering last season’s Young Lions were on the end of some really poor scorelines, to draw 1-1 with them was terrible. The expectation is that tonight’s game will be very different, and should result in a comfortable Sailors win. It is after all, the second-best attack in the league vs the second-worst defence.

Let’s take a look at some of the differences between last season’s game and this season’s game.

A More Settled Defence (than last season’s SG Cup game)

We started a back four of Hafiz Nor (LB), Anu (CB), Amirul Adli (CB), and Haiqal Pashia (RB)) last season against Young Lions in the 1-1 draw. That’s ridiculous considering we had the likes of Iqram Rifqi and Hariss Harun on the bench. Surely we could also have played some youngsters who were natural defenders? We have no such problems coming into this game hopefully.

Nur Adam was on the bench in the last game and may come in for Chris. Bill may also come in either in central defence or on the right, if Coach Risto wants to shuffle his pack a little bit considering this is the second game in a week. Other than that, it’s highly unlikely that we have to do what we did last season. One thing about our defending this season though, is that we are allowing a large number of shots from our opponents. It has been a recurring theme this season for Zharfan to have saved a lot of shots, even if sometimes it seems that the Sailors are allowing their opponents to take shots from long range.

It’s not even close, the number of shots he has saved. On top of that, he tops the list for supersaves as well, which discredits my theory a little that most of the shots faced by the Sailors have been long-range speculative attempts. Hopefully, moving forward, Coach Risto finds a way for us to be less reliant on our keeper pulling off saves.

This is a Better Young Lions Team

Not only have this Young Lions team added two foreigners in Jun and Kan Kobayashi (not brothers, just a common Japanese surname), they also have Jacob Mahler back in the team after his recent suspension and a horrible injury layoff last season. Interestingly, Jun Kobayashi is leading the league in number of defensive challenges won, and ranks pretty highly in aerial challenges won as well.

In their 8 games this season, they have had better xG than their opponents in 3 of the games. This has resulted in them picking up 1 win and 1 draw in their 8 games so far, which is far better than last year’s record where after 28 games in the league, they only won twice and drawn twice.

They have also shown their mental strength in picking up these results. Both times they were behind – 1-0 against Hougang, and 2-0 against DPMM Brunei, but managed to get 2 late goals to put points on the board.

LCS Attacking Options in Form

The last difference I will touch on is that LCS attackers are currently in-form.

Maxime is looking insane currently. His tally of 13 goal contributions so far is the highest in the league. It would be a brave man to bet against him notching at least a couple of goals/assists tonight.

Abdul Rasaq has 5 goals this season from 5 games, and has already equalled his tally from the whole of last season.

Diego Lopes has 2 goals and 5 assists from 7 appearances, and has a great understanding with Maxime.

I do not envy the Young Lions defenders tomorrow if these 3 start. While Bernie didn’t score on his debut, he absolutely bodied one of the Hougang defenders during his time on the pitch. He also looked like he knew how to utilise his size to hold up the ball perfectly for his teammates. It was a debut with some promise, and you don’t get many better opponents than Young Lions to try to open your account for the season.

Conclusion

This is a must-win game given the profile of the opposition. Anything less than a win will invite a lot of debate about whether or not the Sailors are up for the fight.

I think it is going to be comfortable, especially if we can get an early goal.

COME ON YOU SAILORS!

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: YL 0 LCS 6

Ethan’s prediction: YL 0 LCS 4

Joseph’s prediction: YL 1 LCS 4

And here’s the leaderboard –

Written by Eddy Hirono

If you’d like to support the work we do here at SailorFanTalk, you may want to visit https://ko-fi.com/sailorfantalk and leave us a tip!