Abit of a late one – have been so busy clearing work to make time to fly over to Hong Kong to support the boys, and rather interestingly I got lost for an hour earlier in the meandering streets of Central, Hong Kong. But I am safe now, and in the next couple of hours before I head to dinner with some Kitchee fans, here is my preview of tomorrow night’s must-win game. Why, Eddy, you may ask, is this a good time to play Kitchee?
Head Coach Sacked! Kim Dong-Jin Steps In
Or rather moved aside to a “youth development” position – but we all know what that means. Alex Chu was sacked. Up steps Kim Dong-Jin as interim head coach. He is also the Technical Director of Kitchee. If you think his name sounds familiar, it may be because you watched him as a player playing for South Korea at the 2006 World Cup, or winning the Europa League with Zenit St. Petersburg.
The reason for the sacking was touted as a move to “bring harmony to the club in pursuit of major trophies“. I mean that could mean a lot of things – but given that it came on the back of a poor performance in a 4-1 defeat to closest title challengers Lee Man, and a 2-1 defeat to Jeonbuk, could mean that there is some dressing room disharmony.
Kitchee fans have also told us that not only was Alex Chu redeployed, several backroom staff also faced the same fate. It is not a happy camp at the moment, and I don’t need to look too far away for an example of how dressing room disharmony or dissatisfaction with management can lead to a team performing below par on the pitch – Sailors Singapore Cup campaign 2022, anyone?
One thing though, will a Korean interim coach mean that Kim Shin-Wook, our old friend, returns to the starting line-up and plays a pivotal role?
Korean Konnection
Kim Shin-Wook was always a player who divided opinion amongst the fanbase. He had his supporters, fans who loved his goals and how he would oblige fans who mimicked his celebration (dropping to his knees and pointing to the sky), and yet other fans who felt that LCS’s starting striker given our resources should be much better, or at least more mobile. He did score 24 goals in 35 games though – I think opinion about him would have been a lot better if Boris Kopentovic did not have such a brilliant season last year.
At the end of the day however, I think all fans would probably be united in agreeing that Richairo Zivkovic has been an upgrade.
But how has our Wookie fared since he transferred to Kitchee? Not well, apparently. Go take a look at the highlights from my interview with Kitchee fans Edmund and Tim – pretty scathing.
Last season, Wookie finished with the now-overused 007 meme, as he recorded 0 goals and 0 assists in 7 appearances. (I say overused but yet I still use, lol)
This season, he has only seen gametime against much inferior opposition. He took to the pitch and scored a hattrick against semi-pro opposition, and just last weekend, he played in a 6-2 victory in the league, but when he was subbed on, he managed to miss a penalty, and also the rebound (which would not have counted anyway because it came off the crossbar). Apparently he approached the hardcore fans and apologised to them for his performance and looked tearful.
It pains me to say this because I’ve always liked him, but it’s not going well for sure. I tell you why I like this guy though – I think it takes some balls and also shows that the player cares if he goes to the fans and talks to them, knowing full well that they don’t have full faith in him. Prior to this season, he also cut short his summer break so that he could train more in a bid to raise his performances.
However, even if Kim Dong-Jin gives him a chance and starts him against us (unlikely), I still think Kitchee may not be the force they were last year when they qualified for the knockout stages because Wookie is no DEJAN DAMJANOVIĆ.
Big Dejan-Sized Hole in the Attack
Kitchee qualified for this year’s ACL by virtue of them finishing first in their domestic league. They also won the treble, and usually treble-winners are kinda invincible, no?
Well, even though they had Dejan Damjanović with them at the tail-end of last season, it was interesting to watch in an interview with Hong Kong football expert Christie Leung that she felt Kitchee only just barely clung on to win it at the death, and the performance was not convincing.
And that’s with Dejan in attack!
Why all this fuss about Dejan, you may ask. Well, Dejan Damjanović is only the top ACL goalscorer of all time. He is also a K-League legend. I will let his numbers do the talking for me. The pitch graphic is for number of appearances, the blue-ball graphic is for goals, and the green ball graphic is for assists.
Just an insane player – and you consider that what he did for Kitchee was after he had turned 39 years old? Just madness. And he turned in solid performances in the ACL campaign too, not just in the domestic league.
Christie Leung also mentioned in the interview that Dejan’s absence is compounded by Kim Shin Wook’s failure to step into his massive boots. The Kitchee fans had hoped that following the same blueprint in bringing over a K-League legend in Kim, might have led to similar success, but it was not to be. Kitchee’s performances this season have not been useful for me to analyse because the gulf in quality between them and the other Hong Kong sides (with the exception of Lee Man, which they lost to) means that there can be no meaningful way to see if Kitchee’s attack is still potent.
Usually though, it will take a while for a club to adapt accordingly to such a pivotal figure moving away. Spurs have of course, seemingly bucked that trend with their performances looking better than they did last season with Kane, but it is an outlier. It remains to be seen if new 34-year-old Austrian striker Jakob Jantscher can be successful. He has thus far got 1 goal in 4 games, in a truncated start to his time with Kitchee, in part due to the typhoon.
Super Typhoon at a Super Bad Timing
Typhoon Saola led to the postponement of a league game, and also disrupted trainings for Kitchee. Kitchee players’ IG stories showed that their training ground had been flooded as a result of the incessant rain and typhoon.
While they have been playing matches and training for the past few weeks now, the Sailors should be in better form and fitness, considering that we had the benefit of a season’s games behind us, while Kitchee are only in their first few games.
The typhoon then possibly had an unfortunate impact on Alex Chu’s decision to give gametime to some of the second string in their match against Lee Man because he did not want to risk injury to players ahead of their opening ACL match against Jeonbuk. They ended up losing both games, which I think had a major impact on him getting the “sack”.
Perhaps the right time to talk about the Jeonbuk game – unsurprisingly, they were dominated from start to finish, but check out this goal from Kitchee, man. AFC have blocked embedding of this goal, but I promise you it’s worth the click.
Did Mikael mean it? I don’t know, but frankly I don’t care. The satisfying dink off the post? Icing on the cake. Please watch.
But is it all Bad for Kitchee?
Of course not. I am gonna speed through this one in point form so that I won’t be late for dinner with my Kitchee friends.
- Bailey Wright did not show up in training videos, and did not show up in the airport videos either. An HK autograph-hunter also told SailorFanTalk that there was no sign of Bailey at the airport. This is sad. We want all our best players available, of course. (Lionel Tan does love a goal in Hong Kong though!)
- In the Asian Games in Hangzhou, if you were regularly following, you’d have seen that the HK U23 team defeated the Iran U23 team. Amazing. The goalscorer (who is from Kitchee) will not be playing against the Sailors because he is slated to play against Japan on the very same day.
- Cleiton – every Hong Kong football fan I speak to says that Cleiton is an absolute superstar, the Steven Gerrard of this Kitchee team, despite his age. He has started this season in good form as well, so let’s see!
Conclusion
In a group where Bangkok United and Jeonbuk are better on paper than us – we have no choice but to beat teams like Kitchee, whose quality is closest to us. This makes tomorrow’s game a must-win game.
No pressure, lads! Haha. I hope we can take advantage of their ageing legs in defence – would love nothing more than to see Richairo, Lestienne, and Shawal run rings around their defenders.
COME ON YOU BOYS IN BLUE!
Score Prediction
Joseph and I 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: Kitchee 1 Sailors 3
Joseph’s prediction: Kitchee 0 Sailors 2
And here’s the leaderboard –
Written by Eddy Hirono
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