[Preview] Sailors v Hougang (Should be Smooth Sailing)

Sometimes I feel very tempted to write a preview which just says “How can Sailors possibly not win this game?”

This is one of those games. But you guys pay good money to read these previews, so I feel obliged to write something anyway.

Wait, what, SailorFanTalk articles are free? You gotta be kidding me. Into the preview we go.

Hougang are the Lowest Scorers in the League

Yes. 12 goals.

Even lower than Albirex. Who scored 7 of their 14 goals in one game, and the other 7 goals took them eight games to achieve.

Even lower than Tanjong Pagar United and Young Lions, both with 13.

They are a team that do not commit numbers into attack, and are happy soaking up the pressure before trying to break quickly to score. However, due to the aforementioned reluctance to push people into attack, they struggle to get goals.

Their brightest attacking threats are Dejan Racic, Stjepan Plazonja, and Hazzuwan Halim. Together, they have only 9 goals in total, which is just 1 goal more than Maxime Lestienne has achieved this season. On paper, they should pose little threat to us.

However, one thing to look out for would be Shahdan Sulaiman slowly coming back into form. He suffered a horrific injury that deprived Hougang of him for almost the entire 2023 season, but is beginning to form a useful partnership in the middle of the park with Shodai Yokoyama. Shahdan also poses a threat on setpieces, so we would do well not to give up silly freekicks and corners.

Hougang have not scored from and indirect freekick or corner yet this season, but with Shahdan’s delivery, and some tall players, there’s always a possibility.

Hougang’s Defence – Not Great

Aside from conceding 23 goals in 9 games, Hougang also concede the second-most from set pieces. They have conceded 6 times this season, second only to DPMM, who have conceded 7 times from set pieces.

They have a shocking inability to mark their opponents in the box, and evidence of this can be seen from their game against Tampines where Irfan Najeeb was basically unchallenged for both of his headed goals. More recently, they allowed Jun Kobayashi to score off a simple near-post corner routine.

With Toni Datkovic and Bailey Wright in our team, this is surely somewhere we can take advantage. Bailey Wright told his neighbour that he is gonna score 10 goals this season, and he has already scored twice, so 8 more to go!

Bailey’s gonna score again this Sunday – you heard it here first!

Hougang Have a Lack of Depth

Take a look at this lineup in their last game.

Besides Gabriel Quak and Ajay Robson, who can they really bring on to change the game? I mean, three of those substitutes are goalkeepers, which should go to show how poor their depth is. In case you missed the news, Kiki Krajcek has been deregistered for him to seek treatment for a long-standing injury in his own country.

Should things not be going well for Hougang, they genuinelly lack options to help them switch things up.

Hougang’s Poor Form

Hougang picked up a win last time out, courtesy of a beautiful left-footed drive by Plazonja that beat Hassan Sunny. It was their first win in 12 games, a run that stretched back to last season.

But it’s Albirex.

I think Albirex is in such poor form now that you could send out 11 scarecrows, strap on football boots and kits on them, and there’d be a 50-50 chance of Scarecrows FC winning.

Not much more to add here – I’ve been trying to see if Hougang has shown anything in their play so far to make me fear a little that we will drop points. So far, nothing. Maybe the pitch…?

Bad Pitch Condition

The Bishan Stadium pitch has seen better times. It is now bald in some spots, and divots are starting to appear across the pitch. In fact, one of the divots caused Kodai Tanaka to sky a penalty in his last game.

Why do I raise this? It feels like I am really clutuching at straws to see how any other factor might help Hougang against us. The bad pitch could potentially work in their favour because they tend to play more football in the air, while we like to pass it around a bit more. This coupled with Marko Kraljevic’s history of utilising Toa Payoh Stadium’s potato patch of a pitch to his team’s advantage in the past, could maybe give us some cause for concern.

Sailors Availability

Turning our focus to our own Sailors, I guess the big question is whether Izwan will retain his place. This weekend’s starting lineup will tell us whether dropping Zharfan was a one-off to take him out of the firing line a little after his blunder against Tampines, or whether dropping him was permanent – i.e. it’s Izwan’s spot to lose now. I am quite sure it’s the latter.

We might also wonder if Bart Ramselaar is back in contention. He got injured exactly 2 weeks ago, and from experience, hamstring injuries tend to take 2-3 weeks to heal. If there is still any tightness at all, I would hope the club does the wise thing and continues to rest him.

While bringing Bart on against Balestier made sense because they are a good opponent and we needed someone to give us more attacking impetus, I think we should already have too much firepower for Hougang. Keeping Bart out of the squad would also allow Rui Pires to start yet another game, which would be good for him to build up match fitness and confidence.

Obren Kljajic and Abdul Rasaq have also been seen back in training – but sometimes I do wonder if the club’s media team purposely puts such training pictures out to try and confuse and mislead opposition coaches a little.

Adam Swandi has been missing from the last 2 squads, which is unfortunate because he would be the most natural replacement for Bart Ramselaar. We have no information on what injury he has sustained, but whatever it is, we wish for him to recover quickly because a fit and firing Adam Swandi is a very valuable squad member.

Conclusion

Just win. No excuses whatsoever. It shouldn’t be about whether we win or not, but it should be about how many goals we will beat them by.

COME ON YOU BOYS IN BLUE!

My predicted line-up

Izwan Mahbud

Lionel Tan, Bailey Wright, Toni Datkovic, Chris van Huizen

Rui Pires, Hariss Harun, Song Ui-Young

Maxime Lestienne, Lennart Thy, Shawal Anuar

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: Sailors 4 Hougang 0

Joseph’s prediction: Sailors 7 Hougang 0

Written by Eddy Hirono

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