February 11, 2025

After the listless display in midweek, it was important for our Sailors to bounce back with a win in the domestic league. That, we did, and with minimal fuss. 4-1 was the scoreline, but it really should have been 6 or 7. And it wasn’t even like Tanjong Pagar were poor. I think they did pretty well, all circumstances considered, but the gulf in class was just huge, and it showed on the pitch. With the packed schedule ahead, three points and no injuries was the order of the day, and in that sense, Sunday was perfect for us. Let’s dive into some post-match thoughts. Thy Ceremony It’s been coming for some time, but Lennart Thy finally has his first hat-trick in Sailors colours. I think the fuss-free nature of the Sailors win was mirrored by Thy’s hat-trick. None of the three goals was particularly difficult. The first was by far the hardest, where Lennart had to be sharp to turn on the spot and finish with his left foot. The other two goals were basically tap-ins, but you do need to be in those spaces to score those goals. (Remember Dirk Kuyt’s hat-trick of goals against Manchester United in the 2010/2011 season where he basically scored 3 tap-ins from a combined total of 5 yards?) He’s had his critics, but I felt he led the line well last night, and he’s now top-scorer for LCS in the league this season, with 18 goals, 3 more than Shawal Anuar. That’s also his 7th Man-of-the-Match award this season from just 21 games. He’s finding his feet at the right time, and here’s hoping he brings along this form to the ACL2 as well, where we’ll really need to be clinical with our chances. Physicality – Up for the Fight Unlike on Thursday night, I felt our Sailors were really up for the fight, literally. Tanjong Pagar are a long way from their thuggish ways just a few seasons back, but I felt they were aggressive all night (not in a bad way). When you’re up against a side that is alot better in terms of quality, you have to fight, you have to make it uncomfortable for your opponents. I felt TPU did that, and generally didn’t cross the line. Hariss, Bailey, Song, and Maxime may disagree, as they were subject to some tough challenges, but I felt that these challenges were merely normal hard fouls. As the top team in the land, you’re gonna receive such fouls, it’s par for the course. So it was heartening to see that we gave as good as we got. Bailey was elbowed by Rezza Rezky when they challenged for a header, but he himself dished out some punishment to Syahadat in the 81st minute, bodying him off the ball with a tough challenge. Hariss as well, pushed by Matt Silva needlessly, dealt out his punishment to a couple of TPU players as well. Raihan was busy all night, tackling and fouling away, but we were able to look after ourselves, and more. And then we come to the Bart incident. I think Bart escapes a yellow card there. In my opinion, I think the ref giving a yellow card each would be a fair and expected outcome. Some TPU fans have expressed their opinion that Bart is holding back Faizal, and Faizal is just trying to escape Bart’s clutches. I think that’s true to a certain extent only. In my opinion, Faizal flings his arms back in an attempt to get free, yes, but I think he’s absolutely looking to also assert himself in that challenge. There is no excuse for your arms flailing around like that – it’s not a natural movement. Those who’ve played football before, we know, if we want to shield the ball, we will put our arm out straight, but it’s a stationary arm that acts as a barrier, it’s not an arm that’s constantly swinging looking to catch someone. Of course, Faizal does that because Bart is annoyingly grabbing on to him to prevent him from advancing, But that is no excuse for retaliation. Bart deserves a yellow, and Faizal does too – because his arms flailing around do not constitute a red card offence. It’s very common for refs to go “ah there’s a scuffle here, let me book both parties”. In fact, Sailors were on the end of that two games ago, when Diogo Costa puts in a nothing challenge on Naqiuddin Eunos, and Naqi aggressively shoves Diogo. It should be a yellow for Naqi and nothing for Diogo, cos it was just a normal foul, but the ref gives it to both, and not much is said about that. It’s only called into question now because it was a second yellow, and because Bart wasn’t booked. So anyway, TL;DR – Bart should have seen yellow too, ref could have been a bit more lenient considering that this was to be a second yellow, but by the letter of the law, the referee could do what he did. I just sympathise with TPU because it is abit harsh on them. Perhaps the ref was refereeing them based on how they had been tackling all night – which yes, is harsh on them cos each incident should be judged on its own merits. But this wasn’t a crazily bad decision – just harsh. A crazily bad decision is when Timur Talipov pulled off a basketball dribble in last week’s game and both the referee and the VAR cleared it. Anyway, back to the game, the red card came when we were 4-0 up so it didn’t really affect the result, if not there might be even more controversy. Hafiz Nor – A Hat-Trick of Misses Well, I wouldn’t have thought this would happen prior to the game. No exaggeration to say that on any other day, Hafiz Nor gets at least 1 goal from this trio of chances. Maxime Lestienne (more on him later), absolutely