September 28, 2024 – SailorFanTalk

[Preview] Tampines Rovers v Sailors (Please Guys, Don’t Make Us Chant Lima Kosong Again)

The 5-0 scoreline is a haunting one. To concede that number of goals, and to not even score 1 – it’s not a great day out whether you’re a player or a supporter. Unfortunately, we’ve done it twice this season. In Hanoi, the Crew found some time for gallows humour and started chanting “Lima Kosong” as we exited the stadium. Lol. While CAHN is a good team in a good league and you can half-explain it away as a bad day at the office against superior opposition, there can be no such excuses for losing 5-0 to Tampines Rovers. It was so, so poor. The last time we lost 5-0, we picked ourselves up and responded a few days later with a big win against Young Lions, so here’s hoping we can do similar this time round. Let’s dive into some pre-match thoughts. Tampines Not in the Best of Form Oh dear me, the last time I wrote about a team not being on form, it was CAHN and see what they did to us! At the risk of jinxing it though, I am gonna stick to my guns here. Tampines are on a run of 5 matches without a win, and have lost their last 2. It seems that their packed schedule might be getting to them as well, both in terms of fatigue and rotation. They left out Faris and Glenn in their match against Young Lions with an eye on the Bangkok United game in midweek, and they didn’t really get going until both of them were subbed on, eventually clawing back a 2-goal deficit. Unluckily for us this time, it is us who do not have the benefit of a week’s rest and training before the game, as Tampines did not have any midweek games this time round. You can thus be sure that their A-team, including Faris and Glenn will play, and we will need to be wary of their threat. Tampines play a very good brand of football, but it seems that the blueprint to beat/hold them has been repeatedly put on show in the previous few games. Just stay tight at the back, and hit them on the counter-attack. Luckily for us, that’s exactly what we like to do, so I think this is where we might capitalise. As for staying solid at the back, two big questions pop up ahead of this match. First, do we stick with 3 centre-backs at the back, or do we go with 2? Second, is Ranko gonna swap keeper like the last time he did when we lost 5-0 and our keeper made an error? How Many at the Back? Ok you have 5 seconds to decide which you would do if you were Coach Ranko. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Ok I’d prefer if we go with 3 centre-backs at the back for the added solidity. I wonder what the fans think, and I don’t think there is a right answer for this. But here’s why I prefer 5 at the back. First, 4 at the back means Lionel Tan at right-back. I am not super convinced with that, but I don’t feel like there’s better options as well. We all saw Hafiz Nor’s defensive deficiencies against CAHN, while Chris van Huizen also endured a tough time in Hanoi. We desperately need Mamat back, don’t we! If you look at the 5-0 game against Tampines again, we looked good and solid for the 45min, but were undone the moment someone stepped out of the compact backline. Datkovic tried to guess where Irfan Najeeb’s pass was going, and he squeezed up without the other 2 centrebacks following his line. This left a gaping hole for Boris Kopitovic to exploit, and that he did with aplomb. After that, came the dreadful Zharfan error, and as a result of that, he didn’t play for us in the 9 games after. But the defensive performance in the first half was not at all bad. We limited Tampines to very few chances. Where it got disastrous for me, is in the second half, when Lionel was taken off and we moved to a back 4. Suddenly, Faris and Glenn had the time of their lives. Glenn killed Carmona on the left flank to get the crucial 3rd goal, while Faris was left with all the space in the world to curl in a great 4th goal from the left wing. Given that we have been playing with this system against better opponents in the ACL, ACL2, and the Shopee Cup, I think we will continue sticking with it against Tampines, a sign that we take them seriously. Interestingly, in the SPL, the first time we played 5 at the back was against Tampines as well, while our last SPL game against Balestier Khalsa also saw us going back to a back 5. We did not play this formation for the rest of our games – as far as I can remember. I think there is a good reason for playing against better teams with 5 at the back. For all the qualities our Sailors players have, one thing I feel we lack is the ability to cover large spaces while defending. We look so much more solid when we have 3 centre-backs on the pitch. Against teams like Tanjong Pagar, we can get away with anything at the back, but I think against Tampines, it might be wise to stay solid, and hit them on the transitions, which is their weak point. Do We Switch the Keeper? This is a tough one. I think swapping keepers after they make an error is not something I’d do as a coach. Mistakes happen. I wasn’t a fan of Zharfan being dropped for his error, although I do feel it was a decision made not just because of his one error. He had looked a little unconvincing this season in some games when coming out to claim crosses, and Izwan is just

[Post-Match Thoughts] Our Away Duck Continues (CAHN 5 Sailors 0)

Leave a Comment / Post-Match Thoughts / Eddy Hirono

Wow, that was terrible wasn’t it? If you haven’t caught the preview yet, please go take a look at how I said that while CAHN is not easy opposition, this was the perfect time to face them. OK I guess not. 5-0 and a game where I don’t think we really tested their keeper much. What went wrong? Or are we just not at the level required to compete against other ASEAN teams when we play away? Some thoughts this way. Are We Too Defensive? My short answer to this is “No”. Some may point at our away duck in terms of not just getting results, but also getting just goals, and say we have been too defensive. Besides the Kitchee game, we have failed to score in our last few away matches. 3-0 to Jeonbuk, 1-0 to Bangkok United, 3-0 to Borneo. It doesn’t make for pretty reading. And when you’re not scoring goals, then you’d hope the defence is solid. I think the Jeonbuk game people can understand the magnitude of the challenge, but against Bangkok and Borneo, I think fans can be excused for expecting a little better. We fell to a late heartbreaking goal against Bangkok, and this time against CAHN, we conceded 1 in the first half to a very well-worked goal. Some quick passing between the men in red led to what you see above. A great through pass into the box for their right wing-back to latch on to. Look at the top – Hafiz Nor is caught ball-watching and doesn’t realise the danger of his man running past his blind spot and eventually into position to score. In what was a superbly well-worked goal, this was perhaps the only error that was made – the only thing that made it more “preventable”. You can see by the time that the cross comes in, Hafiz Nor is nowhere near his man. It’s not a pace issue, Hafiz Nor is rapid. He was just caught ball-watching – this is where his lack of defensive instincts perhaps shows. He is after all, a winger, not a wingback. What I think is worth talking about is before this well-worked goal, CAHN hardly troubled us. We hardly troubled them as well besides some speculative attempts, including one from Lestienne in the opening minutes that curled just wide – but in an away game, we stayed solid and hard to break down, and I don’t think that’s the wrong way to play. We do have a backline that is not blessed with pace, while our strength as a team lies in how we counter-attack. In an away game against superior opposition, I think we have to be smart and play to our strengths. Had we continued to keep up the solid display at the back, frustration will creep in from the home side and their fans, and that’s when they start to lose focus or over-commit on attack. Also, you saw what CAHN did to us on the counter-attack when we lost the ball. They are a rapid team on transition as well, and if you’re gonna find yourself in 1v1 situations with them – be it striker vs centreback, or winger vs fullback, I guarantee you they beat us 8 out of 10 times. You saw what Quang Hai did to Bailey in the 48th minute – his twinkle toes bamboozling our defence before he nutmegged Bailey easily, and then laid it on a plate for Vitao, who didn’t impress with his finish. They are just a quality team, and against quality teams, you have to play smart. It is a pity that we didn’t manage to hold on till half-time. Half-time 0-0 and the game turns out very different. But these are the margins in continental football. Local teams just don’t have the quality to hurt you in the same way. Izwan Will Be Disappointed with Himself I don’t particularly like singling out players for criticism – but I feel that he would be disappointed with his performance in this one. Just as we lauded him (and the whole Singapore team) for the battling 0-0 in the Saitama Stadium against Japan all those years back, by the same token he should be open to being criticised for his performance in Hanoi. Football is a very funny game in that unless you watch full games, you never quite know whether a team DESERVES a result. 5-0 in this case, I genuinely feel it was undeserved because Izwan had such a poor game by his own lofty standards. On any other day, this would have been a 2-0 or a 3-0, a result that is much easier to take, and much less embarrassing. I’ll talk about some of the goals, and you can be your own judge of whether Izwan could have done better. Let’s start with the 2nd goal – he’s beaten at the near post and that got him quite a bit of criticism. However, I think it’s not easy when a shot comes through a sea of bodies, and the quality on the strike – not just how hard and well-placed it is, but also the guile to disguise the shot means that the keeper may be half-expecting a shot towards the far post. Izwan does well to get down to the shot despite all this, but it just wasn’t enough. Not his fault, this one. Maybe Hafiz Nor and Lionel could have done a bit better to block the shot? The 3rd, 4th, and 5th goal though – in my opinion there’s something to be said about Izwan for all these goals. 3rd Goal In the 65th minute, there’s a corner kick, there’s a big shout of “KEEPER!” and Izwan comes out to deal with the arcing ball. Now, you’ll see a rather weak punch and I am no professional goalkeeper of course, so take my words with a pinch of salt here – but I think he gets caught in 2 minds

[Post-Match Thoughts] Our Away Duck Continues (CAHN 5 Sailors 0) Read More »