May 2023 – SailorFanTalk

[Preview] Balestier Khalsa v LCS – Don’t Waste The Albirex Win

1 Comment / Match Previews / Eddy Hirono

I am not really into bowling, and I’ve never been really good at it. The one thing good about bowling is that while it’s considered a sport, it takes place in air-conditioned halls, doesn’t involve running, and in between frames I can eat instant noodles. But enough about me, let’s bring it back to the relevance to Balestier v LCS. One thing I absolutely hated when I bowled was the emotions you go through when you achieve a strike, and then in the next two throws, you get something pathetic like 0 and 3. For those not very familiar with bowling rules, when you throw a strike, you not only get 10 added to your score for knocking down 10 pins, you also get a bonus of having the score on your next two throws added as well. So it’s truly a waste if you bowl a strike, and then follow it up with lame throws and get only a few bonus points added. The Albirex game was the strike. A glorious achievement that could and should prove vital for the team’s morale moving forward. If we didn’t actually believe it before, we should now believe that we are title contenders. However, it would mean little if we go on to drop points against teams that we should not be dropping points against. Balestier Khalsa’s Strength I waxed lyrical about Balestier Khalsa the last time I wrote about them. Even though the season was only 3 games old at that point, I had seen enough to suggest that Balestier Khalsa are not a shit team, and would pose teams in the league some problems. In the 9 games since I wrote that, they have picked up 4 wins and 5 losses, and are 4th in the table, the “best of the rest“. This is no mean feat for a team that many regularly underestimate. They come into this game with the league’s 3rd-best attack (better than Tampines Rovers), and in Ryoya Taniguchi and Daniel Goh, have two absolute weapons that people really fear. Ryoya is joint-top scorer in the league with 10 goals, while Daniel is on 5 goals. Assists-wise, Ryoya and Daniel both have recorded 4 assists. I referred to them as a dynamic duo 3 games into the season, and they have not disappointed thus far. Balestier Khalsa also record more shots and more shots on target than our beloved Sailors, and if you were to poll every SPL fan for their top 5 central midfielders in terms of form this season, I think it’s likely that Ho Wai Loon’s name will pop up very often. However, we still must beat them, and here’s why. Worst Defence in the League Balestier have conceded 35 goals in 11 games – more than 3 goals a game. Even considering that they try to play a progressive brand of football and score a truckload of goals, they still concede at an alarming rate. Why is this so? I am no master tactician – but my view is that it comes down to a few key points – lack of a steely defensive midfielder to screen in front of the back four, lack of a commanding goalkeeper, and lack of an able defensive partner for Madhu. I won’t dive too deep into any of my points above – maybe just a few lines each to elaborate. No steely DM – Alen Kozar has helped with ball progression, but for some of Balestier’s goals, there’s just this gaping hole in front of the defence that opponents repeatedly take advantage of. Opponents are allowed far too much time on the ball sometimes – we saw this for the 1st and last Albirex goals against them in the last game. Especially for the first goal, you can see that Madhu had to come out to one Albirex player, and when the pass was made to Kunori, there was still noone else helping out, so Madhu himself had to get out there to close down. Someone with more tigerish bite is needed for the Tigers if they are to stop leaking soft goals. Lack of a commanding goalkeeper – I don’t think I am being harsh when I say that Hairul could have done way better with half of the goals conceded against Albirex. For the 2nd goal, he parries a weak shot right back into the danger zone. For the 3rd goal, he probably predicted that the striker was going to shoot to his left, and made up his mind too early, but even then, the eventual shot was so near to where he was, that he should still have saved it. It was much the same for the 5th goal – probably predicting a hit to the far post, Hairul was completely foxed by a tame shot to the near post by Fuwa. This continues a pattern of him performing below par this season – who can forget him conceding against Maxime in the reverse fixture? The ball was mishit by Maxime and the volley bounced into the ground and up into the air. It should have been an easy save, but he couldn’t regain his footing and meekly watched it sail in. His defenders were so stunned they just stood and watched long after the ball had gone in. Partner for Madhu – Madhu this year has shown shades of going back to his best, especially in the game against Tampines where he shackled Boris Kopitovic and really limited his impact on the game. While Boris did score two penalties, but I think even he would admit that Madhu had the edge over him that game. However, his defensive partner has not been a constant. Amer Hakeem, Fabian Kwok, and Emmeric have all been tried next to him, and I can’t quite tell who is the best partner for him. They’ve all been unconvincing, so this may be part of the reason why Balestier have let in so many goals. However, all

[Preview] Balestier Khalsa v LCS – Don’t Waste The Albirex Win Read More »

[Tactical Analysis] Will the Real LCS Please Stand Up (More Often)

[Post-Match Thoughts] Momentous

Leave a Comment / Post-Match Thoughts / Eddy Hirono

The only thing better than a Double McSpicy is a Double McSpicy meal. Beating Albirex is a Double McSpicy. Beating Albirex when 2-0 down at halftime is a Double McSpicy meal, upsized, and also ticking the option on the machine to add one piece of McCrispy. Yes. Apologies once again for the super late article – I am currently overseas and have been tiring myself out clocking on average more steps daily than I do in a few days back home. The mind has been very very willing to do this post-match thoughts article, and for obvious reasons. If you had read my preview, you would have known that the best I hoped for was a draw. Post-match, my thoughts are much the same – Albirex are still a fantastic team and deserve all the plaudits they get. They are still the frontrunners for the title, both mathematically, and also on paper (yes, more thoughts on this later). However, this was still a momentous day for the Sailors – not just in the context of this season, but also what it means for the Sailors’ confidence moving forward. These are just post-match thoughts, not a detailed analysis, so let me touch on some points that made me think. Importance of this Win First – let me deal with the easy point. There’s been people moaning and groaning about how Sailors players and fans have been celebrating this like they already won the title, people asking us to calm down, pipe down, take it easy, etc etc. I thought long and hard about how I should respond to all this (2 seconds), and I have this to say. I couldn’t give less of a fish. And that fish is an ikan bilis. Simply put, I think these complaints miss the point. First, I have not seen or heard about anyone celebrating like they won the title. Sure, the players and fans may have been happier at full-time than usual, but they just beat the reigning champions who have been sweeping aside all opposition (except Tampines) this season, so surely they should be granted some licence to celebrate. Now, add to that the fact that the Sailors have never beaten Albirex in the league in their short history, the fact that we were playing with none of our starting centre-backs, the fact that we came into this match in pretty patchy form, the fact, that had we lost this game, we are probably out of the title race, and of course, that we turned the match around from 2-0 down at the break in dramatic and deserved fashion, and I think it becomes completely understandable for the fans and players to be delighted at the achievement. Second, who cares what other people think? Football is a game of emotions and I’d much rather have supporters celebrating wildly than the opposite. Separately, if I were to make a bigger point about this as well, part of the reason for the wild celebrations may even be down to the gloomy climate surrounding local football. We’ve just come off a very difficult SEA Games football tournament, where from top to bottom, anyone involved in local football has been criticised. Confidence in Singapore football has not been lower in my lifetime. Maybe I am over-thinking this, but perhaps part of it has to do with the fact that we have so little faith in our own system now, and when coming up against this Albirex juggernaut, we see it as a huge thing to register any sort of victory over them – not least a 3-2 come-from-behind victory. And that brings me to my next point – the Japanese system. Japanese System I will just share some quick thoughts here because I just came back from watching Sagan Tosu vs Jubilo Iwata live in Tosu. It was a Cup fixture that pitted J1 Sagan Tosu v J2 Jubilo Iwata. Jubilo prevailed on the night with an impressive 2-0 away victory. I will write a longer post when I have the time about what I think we can learn from them in terms of fan experience, what I observed, and also perhaps share with readers what I think is impressive about what the Sailors are already doing that approaches good/best practices in the industry. For now, my purpose for referring to this game is simply to illustrate the huge gulf between the Japanese system and the Singapore system. The gulf in quality is really very large. Watching these two teams play, what struck me most was the intense pace of the game throughout, and how the teams could press, and press, and press. Fitness was top-notch for sure. The passing and the touches of the players were also top-notch. You couldn’t tell sometimes which was the J2 team and which was the J1 team, and that’s a real credit to Jubilo – but also the wider system of footballing talent in Japan. Pretty telling that Atsushi Kawata, who was Albirex Niigata (S) top-scorer in the S-League some years back and now plays for Sagan Tosu, was one of the worst players on the pitch. He was subbed off early, and frankly despite putting in a real shift in terms of hard effort – it looked like he was a lucky draw winner that won a chance to play on the same pitch as other professionals. That’s the kinda gulf we’re talking about. And he’s already one of the rare ones who can make it back into the J-League. If we look at some star performers over the years, very few of them managed to carve out meaningful careers back in Japan. Kazuki Hashioka for example, the flying wingback who terrorised the league few years back – not even in a J3 team. He is playing for a regional side in Tokyo. I digress – point is simply, it’s very hard to beat Albirex, and I hope the Sailors take a lot of confidence from this, knowing

[Post-Match Thoughts] Momentous Read More »

[Preview] Disgustingly Good

2 Comments / Match Previews / Eddy Hirono

Albirex are not a good team. They are a disgustingly good team. You probably didn’t pay good money just to hear me tell you this. Wait a minute, this website is free and you don’t pay at all lol – but the point remains. You do not need me to tell you that Albirex are disgustingly good – but let me take a few paragraphs to tell you how monumental this task ahead of us is. Attack is the Best Defence, but Defence is also the Best Defence, and Fouls are also the Best Defence What the heck was that long sentence that doesn’t seem to make any sense? Patience, my friend, read on. Albirex are the top-scorers in the league, and also boast the best defensive record. They’ve scored 30 goals, 4 more than the Sailors who are the 2nd-highest scorers, despite playing one game less. They have also conceded 3 goals only. THREE GOALS. After playing 9 matches, to have conceded only 3 goals is frankly ridiculous. Of course, Hassan Sunny’s addition has boosted their backline with experience, and also a fearsome shot-stopping goalkeeper, but according to the SPL website, Hassan Sunny has only had to make 19 saves. Compare that with Zharfan having to make 43 saves, and I think you can draw your own inferences about how much protection the 10 outfield players are giving to their respective custodians in goal. Their attacking prowess is no fluke as well. They have the most shots in the league, and the most shots on target in the league. I’ll throw in another interesting stat for you – despite their superb form, Albirex are also the team with the highest number of fouls in the league. Their tally of 133 fouls in the league is the same as DPMM’s, but DPMM has played a match more, so the foul-iest team in the league is Albirex! Bet you wouldn’t have thought that. This is a purring attacking side capable of mixing it up with a tinge of dirtiness. To confound your mind even more – despite having the most fouls in the league, they have the fewest yellow cards, and no red cards. A purring attacking side capable of mixing it up with a tinge of dirtiness but also disciplined enough to avoid censure from the referees? Wow, end me now. Dangermen Usually when I do previews, I like to talk about some of the dangermen in our opponents’ squad. It’s … kinda hard to do this here. Do we go with Seia Kunori? The top-scorer with 7 goals? Keito Komatsu with 5 goals? The commanding midfield of Albirex? Hassan Sunny in goal? Old man Tadanari Lee with his bags of experience (and also 4 assists, the most in Albirex)? Riku (who we’ve written an article about earlier this season)? It’s really impossible to pick just one, or even two dangermen to focus on. And that poses a problem for us. Our defence has not been the most commanding this season. We’re obviously still missing Pedro Henrique and we’ve conceded 15 goals from 10 games so far. It’s the 3rd-best record in the league, but nowhere near good enough if we have serious ambitions of winning the title. This defensive porosity has also resulted in us dropping 4 unnecessary points against Young LIons and DPMM Brunei. I posed the question to one of our supporters last week – if we cannot keep out DPMM and Young Lions, what hope do we have against Albirex? The fan (Ryan) said what he needed to say – that though the chances are slim, there’s still a chance. I guess because the ball is round, anything can happen, at the end of the day it’s 11 v 11. There, I’ve thrown out all the football cliches I can throw out. Back to the point of dangermen – when a team doesn’t have just one or two dangermen, it becomes very difficult to try and keep them out. For Albirex, if they keep Maxime and Diego quiet, chances are they will get the win. Of the 26 goals scored by the Sailors, only 4 of those goals did not feature either a goal or an assist by the dynamic duo. If they can work out a plan to shut the two down, we are in some serious trouble. We have a lot of talent on the pitch, so I hope that Coach Risto will come up with a plan to get the local boys more involved as well. For us, it will be difficult if we try to focus on any of their dangermen – they’re ALL dangermen. If we focus too much on a few of them, we lose sight of the others, and that could be fatal. Not all Doom and Gloom We have Maxime in the form of his life. Top of the scoring charts, top of the assists charts, and always capable of some magic. We have Mamat looking back to his best and hopefully coming back this game. We have Diego still chipping in with assists. We have quality off the bench that we can call upon. If Tampines can beat them, then there is no excuse for us to not believe that we can as well. We have a 100% home record as well, so maybe there’s something magical about the Bishan pitch? I am really clutching at straws here, I am freaking afraid of Albirex lol. Conclusion I always back my team and I am always optimistic, but I honestly find it hard to be optimistic about this one. I’ll still of course be supporting the team and willing them on to victory (from Japan, sad that I am not around for this match), but I’ll be happy with a point here. A defeat leaves us 7 points behind, and they will still have a game in hand. In a shortened season this year, that will be almost impossible to come back from. We have also not

[Preview] Disgustingly Good Read More »

[Post-Match Thoughts] Dropped Points, Again

1 Comment / Post-Match Thoughts / Eddy Hirono

When you want to win a title, you cannot afford to drop points in games you completely dominate. This was Young Lions, all over again. When you take a look at the advanced statistics, Young Lions and DPMM are comfortably the worst sides in the league, so it is very disappointing that we gave up 3 very poor goals and failed to get the 3 points we needed to close the gap on the leaders Albirex before we play them this weekend. How did we end up drawing a game where we looked so comfortable? Let’s take a look at a few points. Height Differential You may have noticed, that for all 3 DPMM goals, we were beaten in the air. The first goal came from a corner, where somehow Voronkov was marked by Adam Swandi. The second goal came when Voronkov won a header in the box and then we did not deal well with the second ball and the resulting shot. The third goal came when Adam Swandi was once again beaten in the air and the flick-on left DPMM with a numerical overload to attack our box. If you think I am blaming Adam Swandi for the goals, let me clarify that I am not. In the absence of Hariss Harun, Coach Risto decided for a midfield of Adam Swandi and Hami Syahin, which is a technically secure midfield, but one that lacks the size and height in my opinion, to deal with the physical threat of DPMM. For context, Adam Swandi is 171cm, and Voronkov is 187cm. Quite why Adam Swandi was detailed to pick up Voronkov for a corner kick, I will never know. If I have some sympathy for the coach, we had a very short team – the average height was definitely lower than DPMM’s. However, if you look at the graphic below, could Anu not have been the one assigned to man-mark Voronkov, while Adam Swandi defends the space in front of the keeper? Anyway, we can file this away as a good set piece from DPMM which gave them an early lead. However, Sailors did so well to come back and be in a winning position. This inability to deal with the aerial challenges would surface again later in our 2nd and 3rd goal. At some point you have to wonder, should we perhaps have started with someone taller? One solution might have been to start Bill at centreback with Lionel, and then shift Anu up into midfield. That would have given us a bit more height, and perhaps we’d be better equipped to deal with the aerial threat of DPMM? At this point I may sound like I am contradicting myself, because it was also Anu who was beaten for the 2nd goal. However, I guess all I am saying is that when faced with a team containing quite a few players who are pretty short, it becomes clear that we may struggle defensively. And so that leads us on to the next point of discussion. Is Bernie Struggling? Let’s discuss Bernie’s impact on the team. I’ve seen the memes floating around – he’s the next 007, 0 goals 0 assists in 7 games (or so opposition supporters hope). However I think this was the first time I thought Bernie actually moved well. If you look at the replays of the goals, it is his runs which help to pull the defence away, giving space for Lestienne to score. Here above, you see him highlighted in yellow, and his run has created the space for Diego to ghost into the area to finish with aplomb for the 1st goal. You see in the build-up to the 2nd goal, Maxime is all the way on the right and is trying to make up the ground to get involved in this attack. It is Bernie’s unselfish run into the space ahead of him that drags his defender away from Maxime, and results in Maxime receiving the pass in acres of space, and with tons of time too – so all he needs is to pick his head up and curl it into the far corner. It is the same for the 3rd goal, where he drags his defender away from Maxime, giving him the space to cut in and shoot. Three goals, three unselfish runs. If Bernie isn’t scoring goals, then hey at least he’s contributing to his teammates scoring goals. Of course, I still hope we can see him break his duck soon, and be more of a goal threat himself. He’s a huge guy, and I would ideally like to see him physically bully opposing centrebacks. Attack – Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde It’s very strange how in the first half, our attack looked so free-flowing, and it looked like we were gonna end the night with a huge scoreline of 5,6,7 goals, but in the second half, we were kinda toothless. Here’s a stat for you – all 6 of our shots on target came in the first half. I am not a master tactician or something, so I can’t put my finger on why the second half saw us not register a single shot on target. I know we tried, but it was just not to be. One thing I noticed that I felt was quite strange was we did not seem to be targeting the players who were already on yellow cards and clearly tiring. The DPMM defence picked up 4 yellow cards in the space of 10 minutes in the second half as they struggled to cope with the pace and intensity of our players. I felt we should have kept that going – and it was notable that Coach Risto did not send on our substitutes who might have helped to really up the intensity with their fresh legs. The only sub he made was Abdul Rasaq for Bernie in the 75th minute. Coach Risto has to figure out why the second half performance

[Post-Match Thoughts] Dropped Points, Again Read More »

[Preview] Unexpected Home Advantage

Leave a Comment / Match Previews / Eddy Hirono

The fact that this match is taking place later today at Jalan Besar Stadium is a bit of a bonus. This match was supposed to be played in Bandar Seri Begawan but they are still experiencing some stadium issues. spl.sg had a bit of a weird stat when they previewed this game – have a look yourself. I mean….yes, but surely the circumstances are very different, considering that home games in 2019 for them involved an away team travelling to Brunei and playing in front of a crowd without their fans. Considering how many games the Sailors play at Jalan Besar Stadium, and how the Sailors fans are likely to turn up in numbers for this one – this is almost home advantage for us. Hopefully we capitalise. This preview is gonna be a short one cos it’s been a long work week and also because I think there’s not much to talk about facing DPMM. Let’s dive straight into some key points then – Still no SEA Games boys Nur Adam, Abdul Rasaq and Bill Mamadou will not be back in time for this one, despite Singapore getting dumped pretty unceremoniously from the SEA Games. They should be back for the next game, but this one just comes a bit too early. This might mean another start for Nathan Mao, who certainly didn’t look out of place when he played in the last game. (check out our comments in the previous article outlining our post-match thoughts against Geylang). I think many supporters would actually be very excited to see Nathan Mao start again, and hopefully this time, end up with a goal or an assist. The other possibility of course, is Danish Qayyum, who was just a bit short for the last game. We Sailors fans have not seen much of him, and it would be nice for him to get a start here I think. He’s obviously abit more experienced than Nathan Mao, and it might be important for him to be re-integrated into the team, especially when facing the two DPMM dangermen. Voronkov and Hakeme Between the two of them, they have 12 goal contributions (goals and assists). To say that they are a vital part of the team would be an understatement. In the previous match at Bishan Stadium, Hakeme particularly, was a danger throughout. With a good shot and a quick turn of pace, our defenders are going to have a handful with them. Voronkov and Hakeme are also very trigger-happy, so Zharfan will need to be at his best. It must of course be said that even though DPMM is a trigger-happy side, they create much lower quality chances, which is why they outshoot the Sailors (111 shots v 107), but have ended up with 14 goals compared to our 23. High Press In recent matches, we have bemoaned the fact that the Sailors seem to stand off a bit too much from our opponents, and don’t look to dispossess them early in their half. Against DPMM, I hope this changes. We will not get a better chance than this – DPMM’s defenders are not good at playing out from the back. In fact, they have the lowest passing accuracy (73%) in the league by some margin. The next closest to them would be Young Lions’ 77% passing accuracy. In case you’re wondering, LCS’s passing accuracy is 85%. DPMM also have the lowest average number of passes per game in the league. This is not a team that is going to be able to play out of defence if we get our pressing right. I really hope Coach Risto is going to set up the team to press the shit out of DPMM, and force them into errors. In terms of a long ball to break out of defence should they choose to employ it, Voronkov is also not the paciest forward especially given his age, so we really shouldn’t show them that much respect. Conclusion In every metric that can be measured, we’re a much better team than DPMM. Goals scored, shots on target, conversion percentage, pass accuracy, etc etc etc. We simply have to win this game to temporarily leapfrog Tampines into second place. 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: DPMM 0 Sailors 4 Joseph’s prediction: DPMM 1 Sailors 3 Ethan’s prediction: DPMM 0 Sailors 4 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!

[Preview] Unexpected Home Advantage Read More »

[Tactical Analysis] Geylang is Tampines-Lite

[Post-Match Thoughts] Not Our Best But Some Positives

3 Comments / Post-Match Thoughts / Eddy Hirono

I usually try to wait for Instat to come out with some stats about the game before giving you my thoughts, but those jokers are taking their own sweet time, so here goes. In the preview article, I spoke about the need to capitalise on Tampines slipping up against Balestier Khalsa. We did just that, getting the crucial three points. However, I think the performance left much to be desired. We were ultimately bailed out by two free-kicks from Maxime Lestienne (who else) and a great defensive display by Zulqarnaen Suzliman. Here’s a few post-match thoughts. Maybe I’ll start with the positives and then slowly work towards the negatives. Maxime Lestienne The dude’s a machine. What else can I say? 8 goals and 8 assists in 9 games is pretty mental. That’s 1.78 goal contributions per game. Imagine lining up against a player knowing that statistically, he is gonna score/assist about 2 goals – that must be kinda demoralising. But it’s what we’ve come to expect from our brilliant Belgian. If Forrest is reading this, please sign him up. Renew his contract for x number of years, where x is 55 or 78 or something. We want him here forever. Not only is he a real asset to the team, he is also someone that excites us fans. Speaking of someone who excites fans … Nathan Mao There has been much buzz online about whether Nathan’s 5 minutes cameo against Tampines Rovers was a publicity stunt, and whether he deserved those 5 minutes. I mean for me, I didn’t think it was that deep, really. The game was lost, and there was no harm giving a few minutes to a prodigy from the academy, just to allow him to experience an SPL game. If I were to be cynical, maybe it was to distract the supporters, give them something else to get excited about on a day when we played at a level so far below Tampines Rovers. If you wanna relive the match and how it played out, be my guest, check out our depressing post-match thoughts where we spoke about Nathan as well. So, Nathan not only played against Geylamg. he started. In so doing, he became the youngest-ever player to start a SPL game at 15 years and 42 days old. Previously, the record holder was Raoul Suhaimi for Young Lions (15 years and 239 days old). Not only did Nathan start, he played an hour. Of course, this is in part due to the U23 rule where a U23 player must be played, and most of them are at the SEA Games. We referenced this in our preview article as well. However, it must be said that the U23 player can be removed at half-time, and we have seen clubs in the league do that, LCS included last season. It is to Nathan’s credit that he stayed on past half-time. In the first half, Nathan looked brave with the ball and in a half that was crying out for some attacking verve and impetus, something for the supporters to get excited about, Nathan was arguably the only one to provide it. Trying my best to analyse his performance without the “oh-he’s-15-years-old” lens, I genuinely feel like he did very well. There were some moments where he brought the fans off their seats – for example, 3:25 onwards in this brilliantly-shot video. Throughout the time he was on the pitch, he never looked out of place, and that’s the greatest compliment I can pay him given he is at such an early point in his nascent football career. It would be easy for someone making his first professional start at that age to just take the safe option all the time, but he mixed it up, sometimes opting for the easy pass, but sometimes also running with the ball and beating his man, getting fouls. Very encouraging to watch, and he was given a warm reception from the fans when he was subbed off. Even our former CEO had nice things to say about him in the post-match interview. Keep it up, Nathan! Zulqarnaen Suzliman (Mamat) A monster game from a full-back who we expected huge things from ever since he came back from Young Lions last year. His performances for the national team and in the league actually got me quite excited when he came back, but unfortunately due to injury, I think it took a long while before we saw the true Mamat. This was a monster performance and a vital one, because in defence, it looked like we were so vulnerable to the counter-attack but Mamat was able to bail us out on three occasions. First, he blocked a shot on goal off the line, and he then denied Yushi Yamaya on two separate occasions with determined last-ditch tackles. Don’t take my word for it – the club has put together a nice little compilation of those moments. Check it out here and decide for yourself – We spoke to Mamat after the game, and he showed humility and said he’s happy he saved the team from conceding three goals, and that it was just his defensive instincts kicking in. Aside from contributing in defence, he also went up the other end and got fouled for the crucial freekick that Maxime scored to equalise. It came as a result of the team collectively picking up the pace in the second half, and Mamat tried to run beyond the defence to get onto a clipped pass over the top. This led to the defender fouling him to impede his progress. In a match where Geylang were content to shuffle from side to side in a deep defensive block and attack on the counter, it was vital that our wide players (including the fullbacks) tried to get behind the defence and outnumber the Geylang defenders. Thank you Mamat for your contribution this game! Substitutions of Hafiz Nor and Shawal Anuar I mentioned above that collectively

[Post-Match Thoughts] Not Our Best But Some Positives Read More »

[Preview] Must Capitalise on Tampines Slipping Up

1 Comment / Match Previews / Eddy Hirono

You know I don’t actually hate Tampines Rovers or anything, but it’s always funny to see teams slip up in a bad way when they are involved in the title race with your team. Nothing personal, just business. Tampines have been impressive this season, but in their last three games, they have not reached anywhere near the high standards they set for themselves. No goals from open play in 2 of the matches, defensively looking a bit suspect, Boris Kopitovic is the saddest-looking person despite scoring 3 goals in 3 games. All penalties, of course, and he even tried his best to miss one of them. All of this is well and good, and is very funny, and it makes me smile, and it makes the world a better place, but it all will mean nothing though, if the Sailors cannot capitalise on Sunday night. Had Tampines won last night, as they should have, if you believe the bookmakers and pundits (Balestier were at 10-1 odds to win), then they would have opened up a 7-point gap on us with 1 game in hand. As it stands though, they are a much more catchable 4 points away from us. If we win the game in hand, we go to 1 point below them. Not ideal of course, given the disparity between our resources and their resources, but also not fatal, and with time and remaining games to catch up to them. We come up against Geylang though – who are a bit of a bogey team for us. In the last 5 games against Geylang, we have lost 2 and drawn 1. Not good enough at all. The manner of the losses as well was deeply depressing. If you remember those games from last season, we were comprehensively outplayed and Geylang just looked like they were much more up for the fight than we were. But no matter, different season, different outcome perhaps. We swept Geylang aside easily 3-0 barely two months ago, and we will be looking for a repeat. Here are a few key points that I think will decide the game. Who Starts as our U23 Player? With our U23 players all at the SEA Games, we cannot count on any of Abdul Rasaq, Bill or Nur Adam to start the game on Sunday. As such, we are looking at Danish Qayyum as the most likely starter. He has played only 4 minutes this season, coming on as a late sub for us in our season opener against Tanjong Pagar. He came on at left midfield, which is the position that he played most last season with Young Lions. To be honest, I am surprised we have not seen more of him , especially in games where we have a comfortable lead. Anaqi Ismit is also U23, but I believe he is currently injured still, and so is not an option. Another option who may start is Nathan Mao, I guess? After all the fanfare of his 5-min cameo which sparked a lot of debate from people who said that it was just a PR stunt, or that he “did not deserve to break the record”, it would be a strong show of support for him and his burgeoning talent if he were to start in this game. I find this to be unlikely though, given that attacking midfield is an important part of our build-up play, and if he starts, he will come up directly against some really seasoned and good defensive players, such as Rio Sakuma, Takahiro Tezuka, and Josh Pereira. But who knows, maybe a half for him to show what he can do, and then replace him with an experienced player for the second half? One can dream! Zharfan’s Key Role in this Game Some things don’t need to be said – for example, I don’t need to tell you that Maxime Lestienne is a key player for us. He has the most goals (6) and most assists (8) for us, and 14 goal contributions in the first round of the SPL season is insane. He seems to have taken the Player of the Year snub quite personally. Which is good for us. But some other things need to be said. Zharfan will play a key role in this game, and he must be on top form. I’ve mentioned this before in a previous article, but it is pretty worrying that Zharfan has had to make so many saves. We even spoke to him about it in this little interview. A title-contending team should not be giving up that many shots, even if they are from speculative range. This match should see this pattern of him having to make saves continue, because Geylang is a team that loves taking shots. The stats above are taken from spl.sg, and you can see that Yushi Yamaya and Vincent Bezecourt seem to have a shoot-on-sight policy. 53 shots, and of those, 22 are on target. While a good number of these shots have been from long range, they are also getting their shots on target, as can be seen from this table below. Anything could happen from a shot on target, and I hope we can slowly but surely start to work on limiting our opponents and stopping them from taking shots. But if the shots are gonna come in, then Zharfan, we’re gonna need him to have a good game. Keep it simple, no spills, no thrills for us. Who Starts in Attack? With Kodai Tanaka out for the season, and Abdul Rasaq away at the SEA Games, we have only two realistic options when it comes to centre-forward. The first option is Bernie, while the other is Shawal. Bernie has not set the world alight so far, it’s fair to say. And of course, this should be expected given his injury troubles and how long he has been away from professional football. He has shown his physicality thus far, but the sharpness of

[Preview] Must Capitalise on Tampines Slipping Up Read More »