June 2024

The league’s two highest-scoring teams meet – Geylang with 22 goals from 5 games, and our Sailors, with 16 goals from 4 games. Very impressive goalscoring form from both sides, but the weird fact that pops out to me is that Geylang have conceded 4 goals from the penalty spot this season. That is unusually high considering there have only been 7 penalties awarded this season. Can we draw any conclusions from that stat? Will either team lose their unbeaten start to the season thus far? Let’s dive right into the preview. Goals, goals, goals Geylang have the highest goals per game ratio in the whole league. They have scored 22 and conceded 12, which makes it a whopping 6.8 goals per game. They have certainly been a fun side to watch. Our Sailors as well, have scored 16, but I think you don’t need to have a very good memory to remember that almost half of those were directly contributed by that game against Albirex. So does this mean that this is going to be a goalfest? Well, not necessarily. It really depends on how Geylang is going to set up. Is Noor Ali likely to continue with his side’s swashbuckling ways against our Sailors? I doubt he will. Seeing Albirex get absolutely ripped apart on the counter-attack is likely to figure in his thinking a little. If you’ve watched Geylang games this season, you’ll notice that they get good numbers into the box, and they always support the attack. This is partly due to the coaching philosophy, but partly also due to the personnel Noor Ali has at his disposal. In previous seasons, Bezecourt used to be the most advanced of the midfielders, and would regularly pop up right behind the striker. However this year, due to the recruitment of Ryoya Taniguchi, and possibly also because of the injury to Huzaifah Aziz, Bezecourt has been played in a deeper position. That doesn’t mean he is holding back in midfield, he gets involved in the attack quite a bit too. You put an attack-minded player in central midfield, and then ahead of him you have attacking talents like Iqbal, Ryoya, Doi, and Naqi – it is no wonder the players always seem to be in and around the box. Their attacking instincts are well-suited for the way they want to play. However, as mentioned above, I suspect Noor Ali will rein his players in a little. Our Sailors usually leave at least two forwards up (Maxime + 1 other) when we defend, so Geylang might find it difficult to get as many players up in attack as they usually do. If they do choose to sit back a little, they will have to trust that whatever chances they can create upfront are put away by their star striker, Tomoyuki Doi. Tomoyuki Doi is a Goalscoring Machine Maradoina, van Nisteldoi, Ronaldoi, Lewandoiski. Call him what you want, but this man scores goals. He is the current top-scorer of the SPL with 9 goals. If you add in his assists as well (2), he is responsible for half of Geylang’s goals. He has also scored in every game this season. The praise doesn’t stop there. He has scored 9 goals from a total xG of just 4.61, which goes to show how clinical he is, and how he is helping turn half-chances into goals. 5 goals on his stronger right foot, 3 goals on his weaker left foot, 1 goal with his head – man’s an all-rounder. Of his 9 goals, 3 have come from outside the box, showing that he really is a striker who can do it all. Back in 2021, he was both the SPL Player of the Year and also the league top-scorer with 19 goals in a shortened season. This year, he is on course to do much better than that. He is the obvious dangerman, and if we are to keep a clean sheet, our defenders and keeper are gonna have to be on top form. Geylang’s Shaky Defence If all that talk about Tomoyuki Doi has got you feeling a little pessimistic, perhaps this section might cheer you up a little. Geylang’s record of 12 goals conceded is equal to that of Tanjong Pagar’s (albeit having played 1 game more). Let that sink in. Tanjong Pagar Utd this season feels like the kind of team that can get relegated even though there is no relegation in the SPL. And Geylang have conceded as many goals as them. Compare that with the Sailors having conceded only 3 goals thus far, and it’s a world of a difference. If you ask me, I think there are two key differences. When you see players like Shakir Hamzah getting goals and assists, it’s nice to see, but the flipside of that is that if the transitions are done well, then it leaves big holes for opponents to exploit. Let’s now talk about Geylang’s penalty-conceding record. There have been 7 penalties awarded this season – 4 is more than half the penalties awarded, and even though it’s early days, it would seem that Geylang’s defence has a propensity for panicking in the box and committing rash fouls. You couple this unique stat with another rare one, that they have given up 2-goal leads 3 times in 5 games – and it goes a long way to show that Geylang has not got their defence sorted. Last week was the clearest example, when they somehow contrived to give up a 2-goal lead to 10-man Brunei DPMM. Conclusion Looking at both sides’ form heading into this one, it would seem like a no-brainer for this to be a high-scoring affair. But I don’t know – I feel like both sides will respect each other, and it might then lead to a bit of a tense atmosphere, especially in the first half. Just a weird feeling I have. Noor Ali should be aware that if he turns this into a shoot-out,

Games against Albirex don’t usually feel like this. For the first time in forever, we go in as overwhelming favourites. Albirex has the 2nd-worst attack in the league, scoring only 5 goals in 4 games. If you add the Community Shield to that, they have 5 goals in 5 games. Defensively? They aren’t much better there. Despite having Hassan Sunny in their ranks, they have conceded 10 goals in the league, a stat that is only better than Young Lions (14), and Hougang (15). Even Tanjong Pagar have conceded fewer goals. I said back in May before the Community Shield that the Albirex game was a chance to lay down a marker. Well, now it’s time to take that marker, unscrew the cap, and draw something funny on Albirex’s face. Not only must we beat Albirex this weekend, I think we have to convincingly demolish them to try and shake off some of the history against them, having lost two title races to them in recent seasons. Sputtering Attack It says something about Albirex’s attackers this season when they bring in an unknown Japanese striker from a US college team and he immediately doubles the goal tally of other established attackers such as Daniel Goh and Shuhei Hoshino. Daniel and Shuhei impressed last season. Daniel had 9 goals and 6 assists in all competitions, and was always a livewire down the right wing. Shuhei had 16 goals and 13 assists, and the pair of them were part of an impressive Balestier Khalsa attack that scored the 3rd-most goals in the league. It was perhaps this form that saw some rumours about our Sailors possibly signing Daniel Goh in the off-season. However, he has not been able to reach the heights of last season at all. Daniel has 1 goal and 0 assists this season, which is poor considering that he is often the focal point of the Albirex attack. At every opportunity, Albirex try to set Daniel Goh free down the right, but he has seldom been able to beat his man and put in a meaningful ball. Daniel’s only goal came in a loss against Tampines, an instinctive lob over Syazwan Buhari after a brilliant through pass from Shuhei Hoshino. That was Shuhei’s only assist of the season, and he too, has struggled to hit the form he achieved last season. With Daniel and Shuhei in poor form, our Sailors will feel confident of shutting out the Albirex attack. Brittle Defence And now we move on to the defence. I think it says a lot that if you ask people who are the standouts in this Albirex team, they will either tell you it’s Hassan Sunny, or their centreback Stevia Egbus Mikuni. The pair of them have been put under a lot of pressure, and despite their best efforts, Albirex still has the 3rd-weakest defence in the league. This is definitely not what Hassan Sunny signed up for. I mean I could end this whole article by saying that Albirex lost to 10-men Young Lions despite being in the lead. That should be enough to tell its own story of a defence that is so weak. Just look at how Enomoto scored the Young Lions’ 2nd goal last week. A routine long ball from defence, and Enomoto was 1v1 with Hassan Sunny. Simply unacceptable. But let’s take a deeper look. Of the 10 goals Albirex have conceded this season, 8 have been from open play. 8 of the goals have also been scored from inside the box. It suggests that that they are easy to play through. The eye-test also confirms that they have real problems defending transitions. Take the above for example. It’s 2-2, Albirex are defending against 10-man Young Lions, and somehow they overcommit in the near side of the box, drawn by the threat of Farhan Zulkifli after he made a promising run down the left flank. How can one man draw the attention of 4 players like that, leaving Andrew Aw the freedom of the box? Similarly here, too much attention is paid to the man with the ball, and there’s a complete lack of midfield cover to notice that there are 2 DPMM players at the top of the box with nobody marking them at all. One is outside the box, while the other is Julio Cruz, who buries this chance easily. Ho Wai Loon has over-committed and his midfield teammmates did him no favours by not chasing back in time. You will see this happening again tomorrow I think – players sucked into situations but not affecting the ball or the dribbler enough, leading to free men ready to punish Albirex. Lennart Thy There was quite a bit of criticism for Lennart Thy on his debut. When I spoke to him after the game, he seemed kinda disappointed as well – or maybe he is just a man of few words. Naumovski did well to deny him, and of course, I think he had further chances with his head and left foot that he did not take. Some people on The Final Whistle Telegram chat immediately wrote him off. Sailors fans are likely to be more patient, as we remember that Richairo Zivkovic had a slow start for us too, but then went on to become a regular goalscorer for us. In fact, something interesting to note – Richairo debuted against DPMM last year but did not manage to get a goal, but scored against Albirex in the next game. Our next game? Albirex. Aside from the chances, I was quite impressed with Lennart’s play. He gives us an option to go long from the back, as he is quite tall and strong. Twice in the game against DPMM, a long hopeful ball was played out from the back and he managed to knock it down to a teammate. This gives us greater variety in our build-up options. Shawal Anuar How is Shawal Anuar 33? His pace, his agility, his gravity-defying leaps

Yes. That’s a picture of me at the Hassanal Bolkiah Stadium, home of Brunei DPMM. On 15 June 2024. Matchday – or at least it was supposed to be. Brunei DPMM unfortunately did not inform the fans that there was gonna be a rescheduling of the game, until 8 days before. Which was way after Chin Heng and I had already booked our air tickets to Bandar Seri Begawan. Of course, when we first heard about it, we were livid. How inept does DPMM have to be when you had a whole year and a half to renovate the stadium, such that now when the season has already started, you are still facing technical issues? But you know what they say about life when it throws you lemons. You make lemonade. In this case, our lemonade was deciding that since our tickets were non-refundable, we would go to Brunei anyway, to experience the local culture, speak to locals, and just have a good time. So, lemonade became teh ais limau. After a great day of food and sightseeing, I am now in the hotel room typing all this. A preview of the Brunei game, written in Brunei. Apt! Advantage Sailors Leaving aside the complete disregard for fans who may have made plans to travel, this inconsiderate move by DPMM actually benefits the Sailors. We have to play 4 league fixtures against them, 2 home, 2 away. But now, due to the stadium issues, we have to play 2 home, 1 away, and 1 neutral game. Of course, the neutral ground is one we know well, and will require our opponents to take a 2h flight to travel to Singapore for. The Crew will also be there, and in full voice, what with the match now being in Singapore, so there won’t be just Chin Heng and myself. The close proximity from the stands to the field at JBS will also help make our presence felt. Location aside, the slight postponement of the game from 15th to 18th June also means that our national team players have a little bit more time to rest those tired legs after international duty. Bad for Chin Heng and I, but overall better for the larger group of fans, and the club itself. That doesn’t mean that DPMM if you are reading this, you shouldn’t compensate us. GIVE US A FREE JERSEY OR SOMETHING PLEASE. DPMM Firepower If you’ve watched DPMM this season, you will know from that limited sample size of two games that their attack is looking scary. Last season, Hakeme Yazid was the shining star, as he got goals and assists galore and was their top-scorer. This season though? He’s played a more supporting role, allowing the other attacking talents alongside him to shine. Gone is the ageing Andrei Voronkow, in comes Julio Cruz and Miguel Oliveira. These two have looked to be real threats, and I think will give many SPL defences nightmares for the rest of the season. Julio Cruz, in particular, has looked really lively and in just one match has shown the full range of his abilities. Against Albirex, not only did he clinically net a close-range goal from a cross with his right foot, he also made 2 assists, one with his head, and another with a sumptuous through pass using his left foot. He looked like a complete player, and that’s just on his league debut! You can almost tell that this is a player who is used to operating at higher levels, which is what his CV suggests. Just 3 years ago, he was the top-scorer in Mexico’s 2nd division. Miguel Oliveira has already shown he has a left foot to be feared. Already scoring three times this season, he is a threat in and around the box, while his pace also means that he will be dangerous on the counter, along with Hakeme Yazid. It is worth noting that his 3 goals come from a cumulative xG of just 0.76 – and it shows in the goals he has scored. For all 3 goals, he was in a difficult position but managed to find the back of the net. Zharfan will need to be at his best to stop Oliveira once he gets a shot in. Flottman Injury Their attack may be firing on all cylinders, but unfortunately for DPMM they may have an issue at the back for this game, and also for a long time more. Patrick Flottman, their foreign signing at centreback has unfortunately suffered a recurrence of his ACL injury, and will likely miss many months of the season. We wish him all the best. It leaves them a little weak at the back. This season they’ve conceded 2 goals, and both were from set pieces. It is definitely something we should look to exploit. Lionel Tan will be back for this one, so I hope he gets the memo. Sailors’ Own Strength Perhaps not more needs to be said about this. I focused on Oliveira and Hakeme and Julio Cruz – but if any frontline is scarier than that, it is gonna be Thy, Lestienne, Bart. And that is exactly how they may line up. I am not sure about whether Shawal will start given that he took some time off from the national team so as not to miss his wife’s delivery date. Song Ui-Young also looks a doubt because he was unable to play against Thailand. I know I said in my last piece about Lennart that he may not start given that he just finished a long season in the Eredivisie, but if these two players don’t make it, he may be tossed right in. Mr. Thy has already made a goalscoring contribution in the Sailors shirt, albeit just in a friendly game against JDT II one week ago. Let’s see him score for real on Tuesday! Conclusion One of the two remaining perfect records in the league has to come to an end. I