Geylang isn’t a one-man team, but they’re the closest in the league to it. Tomoyuki Doi has been involved in 58.3% of his team’s goals this season, if you count his goals and assists. By way of comparison, Maxime’s figure is at 43.3%.
Doi’s contribution has come in the form of 34 goals and 8 assists, is an insane tally considering Geylang have only played 21 games thus far. His goals have ensured that Geylang International are firmly in the top 3, and also top-scorers of the league with 72 goals.
Can we stop Doi? And in so doing, can we inflict defeat on Geylang, who have picked up 6 wins out of 7 since the last time they played us? Let’s dive right into the preview.
Doi the Obvious Dangerman
I mean – that’s just ridiculous. So every 90 minutes, he has 2 goal contributions, and is expected to score 1.62 goals? What kind of goalscoring robot is this? In his last outing against us, he scored 2 goals, one a tap-in, and the other a penalty. He has the knack of always being in the right place at the right time, but there’s more than that. While he has an xG per 90 of 0.91, he is scoring 1.62 goals per 90, almost doubling it. While some people will feel that such performances will revert to the mean before long, the season is already more than half-gone, and yet he is keeping it up.
Doi is not a tap-in merchant either. About a quarter of his goals are from outside the penalty area. This makes it difficult to stop him, because he can pass it off to his midfielders, he can run with it, or as he showed against DPMM, he can take a shot out of absolutely nothing and still find the back of the net.
Doi’s tally of 9 goals from outside the penalty area is the highest in the league. Seia Kunori is 2nd with 6 goals. This has also contributed to Geylang being the team to score the most goals from outside the box.
How are we gonna stop him? That’s something for Coach Ranko to figure out!
The Other Dangermen
If you look at the assists charts, you’ll see a few names from Geylang. Outside of LCS, Bezecourt is the busiest man when it comes to assists. He is into double figures and doesn’t show signs of stopping. Bezecourt will be relied on to set the pace in attack, and in the press. If you remember, it was him who nicked the ball from Hariss and went on to score from range when our sides first met in June.
Ryoya Taniguchi is another one to watch. He hit some insane numbers last year with Balestier Khalsa – 23 goals and 6 assists in the league. While this year hasn’t quite been prolific for him, he still poses a threat. You can’t quite argue with 9 goals and 9 assists.
Form Book
Both teams come into this in great form. While our Sailors have kept 3 clean sheets in the last 4 games and remain unbeaten in 2025, Geylang have gone on a bit of a streak as mentioned above.
It’s worth noting that Geylang have not beaten us since 2022, despite running us close on a couple of occasions.
I think I must also state at this point that when we last faced Geylang, it was in August. Prior to that, June. Those were times when our team was still trying to figure each other out. ACL2 and the Shopee Cup has allowed us to go up another level when it comes to match tempo. It’s thus no surprise that when we played DPMM and Albirex, at times it felt like everyone was sleepwalking on the pitch.
The lessons learnt from the continental matches have turned us into a far more resilient side. Don’t think it’s a stretch to say that because of some of the trauma experienced, our team looks more compact, more solid, more together now.
Are we likely to be a little fatigued with this match coming just 3 days after our game against Buriram? Possible, but let’s hope not.
Conclusion
It’s been a short fuss-free article, and I hope tonight’s game is fuss-free as well.
COME ON YOU BOYS IN BLUE!
My predicted line-up
Izwan Mahbud
Chris van Huizen, Lionel Tan, Bailey Wright, Toni Datkovic, Sergio Carmona
Song Ui-Young, Hami Syahin
Maxime Lestienne, Shawal Anuar, Bart Ramselaar
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: Geylang 1 Sailors 4
Joseph’s prediction: Geylang 1 Sailors 6
Written by Eddy Hirono
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