August 29, 2024

That’s a sad title, isn’t it? Amazingly, despite missing our chance to go top last week, tonight presents another chance for our Sailors to do so. For that to happen, we’ll need to beat Geylang, and hope that somehow Tampines fails to take all three points when they face Hougang. The latter is highly unlikely, despite Hougang’s recent resurgence in form, but depressingly, I am going to predict that our Sailors won’t be able to pick up all three points against Geylang anyway. Let’s dive right into the preview. Lack of Rotation Costing Us Rotation is a word I have mentioned quite a few times this season in preview articles. Why I have been banging that drum repeatedly is because I feared that the fixture congestion coming up would lead to tired performances and worse, injuries. Of the 12 games played in the league so far, all 12 have seen Maxime Lestienne starting. I know he’s our biggest star, and he leads the Sailors both in goals and assists, but surely we can’t keep playing him and still expect his performances to be top-notch week in week out? To make things worse, sometimes we find ourselves in a comfortable lead, and still persist in leaving him on the pitch – as we did for the entirety of the 7-1 thrashing of Hougang. Can we not trust our bench options earlier on in games when we are already comfortably leading? Can we consider leaving him out of the team if we’re playing Tanjong Pagar for example? What does it say about us if we cannot be confident of beating Tanjong Pagar without Maxime in the side? Questions for us to think about. To make matters worse, not trusting your bench players also then means that when they do need to step up and contribute, they lack rhythm. When Anu and Adam Swandi come on nowadays, I don’t feel they are anything like what I remember of them as players. Is it a physical issue? Mental issue? Frankly I don’t know. Moving forward, I hope Coach Ranko balances out the workload a little more. I shudder to think what will happen to our team should Maxime sustain a bad injury. Touchwood. All of you reading this please touch wood as well. Datkovic Injury Datkovic is a tough guy – and so for him to lie on the ground wincing in pain after a collision with Hassan Sunny must have meant he was in a lot of pain. There is talk about the injury being a fractured rib, while some others say it’s a bruised rib. If it’s a fracture, then he’ll be out for at least a month. Fingers crossed. It’s a real shame because I feel he has settled into the team really well. He is assured in defence, useful in build-up, and also a penalty-box threat at the other end during setpieces. He is also the only left-footed centre-back option that we have, so this is a big blow to us, because it has an effect on how we play out from the back. The Toni-Bailey partnership has been an integral part of the defence that has conceded the second-least number of goals in the SPL this season. Toni’s injury means we will likely see a partnership that is largely untested, Bailey + Lionel, or Bailey + Hariss. This thus has further knock-on effects as to the midfield options that we have. All in all, a big blow to have Toni out for so long. Bailey was also left out of the squad for the loss to Albirex, with sources stating he suffered a concussion during the Borneo game. Fingers crossed he can make it back for this game – we’ll need all the bodies we can get. Geylang Always Give Us a Tough Time I was a little surprised when I checked the head-to-head results between Geylang and the Sailors in the past few meetings. I was expecting to see Geylang taking points off us left right and centre, but surprisingly we actually won all 3 games against Geylang in 2023, and the only bad result was the 1-1 draw earlier this season. Of course, there’s a reason for why I had that impression, and I suspect some other Sailors fans will have that impression too. First, it’s because we remember 2022 all too well, when we faced Geylang 4 times, and only managed 1 win. Even leaving aside the results, Noor Ali has set his side up well against us in the past few years, so much so that even if we do win, it isn’t exactly convincing. I am sure you will remember the 2-1 win over them when we needed a pair of Lestienne freekicks to bail us out – we were completely impotent in attack that day, and defensively we had to rely on a Mamat masterclass to stop Geylang from increasing their lead. This season’s game also saw Geylang completely grab hold of the impetus in the first half, and they scored after Bezecourt capitalised on a Hariss error. They do very well to stop us playing out of the back and building in any meaningful fashion, so we can expect more of the same this time. Tomoyuki Doi The man’s a machine. Even when Geylang are playing like crap, he scores. He’s now on 20 goals for the season, and to put things into context, that’s about half of Geylang’s goals (45), and more than the numbers of goals scored by Tanjong Pagar (15), DPMM (19). It is also equal to the number of goals scored by Young Lions and Hougang United, while only one less than that scored by Albirex (21). It is just insane. And he takes them from everywhere too. While he is a potent penalty-box finisher, 5 of his 20 goals were taken from outside the box as well, meaning you can’t just sit off him as well. With the Sailors defence in flux – I am not