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 laid it on a plate for him for 2 of those chances, and we failed to capitalise. On another day, this might hurt us, but luckily for us, the game was almost over.
For all of TPU’s improvement, I felt that one thing that they didn’t quite get right was the pressure on the ball-handler. Far too often, our Sailors were allowed time and space to pick out passes behind the defence. Maxime, Hami and Bart did this all night long. If you watch the game again, I think you will see that trademark ball played by one of our midfielders, from centre midfield or slightly wide of the centre. It’s a long ball aimed away from the goalkeeper, to someone making a far post run. The intention is not for the person to score, because the angle is a bit wider than that, but it’s for the person to cut it back.
This was also how Diogo Costa profited and managed to hook a cross in for Lennart Thy to score. I think the text description isn’t great – let me show you some stills.
All these balls were played behind the defence into an area where the keeper cannot come and gather. It was a ball TPU routinely had trouble with. And then once they had a man sent off, those spaces became even easier to exploit. Maxime was putting it on a plate for Hafiz Nor right in front of the keeper, but unfortunately, he had no goals to show for his troubles. Speaking of Maxime Lestienne….
Maxime Lestienne – Centurion
100 appearances? Wow – I can’t quite believe it tbh. It doesn’t even feel that long ago, though if you think about it, Maxime was there when we played our first-ever ACL game. He was part of the huge 3-0 win over Daegu, and he picked up 2 assists, one for Diego Lopes, and one for Song. Yikes, that was 3 years ago, time flies.
In that time, according to transfermarkt.com, he has 56 goals and 83 assists, an astonishing tally, considering about a quarter of those games (23) came in continental competition. We are very lucky to have him, and the one thing missing from his CV now is an SPL title. Let’s hope this season is the one that we end up achieving it – it would feel weird if such an impressive player doesn’t win the biggest prize in Singapore football.
On a slightly funny but not very concerning note, the profligacy of some of our players in front of goal in recent weeks means that Maxime is actually on a bit of a barren streak. This year, he only has 1 goal and 1 assist to show for his 6 appearances, which as we all know, is far from his very high standards.
I am not that concerned, because he’s still laying on quality chances for his teammates – we just haven’t been finishing them. It will come. Hopefully all against Muangthong.
Conclusion
3 points and we extend our lead at the top of the table again. 6 points ahead of Tampines with 1 game in hand. 10 points ahead of Geylang with 2 games in hand.
I know, I know, don’t jinx it and all, but I don’t see us slipping from here on out. The challenge will be for Coach Ranko to ensure we can go deep into the Singapore Cup and ACL2 while not entirely throwing away our commanding league position. If we have to put out a team that may only draw in the league match, but will give us a fully-rested squad against a tough ACL2 opponent, we’ve earned ourselves a bit of leeway to do that.
We’ve done that before when we rested half the first team against Tampines and squeaked out a 2-2 draw to remain fresh for ACL2, so it’s not without precedent.
See you guys in the Muangthong preview, where I’ll be joined by Joseph “Jodrago” Chin. Cheers.
Written by Eddy Hirono
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