A couple of months ago, this would have been a walk in the park. TPUFC was losing game after game, conceding tons of goals while scoring barely any. Now though, they look a different team with some new faces, and also the return of a familiar face in Noh Alam Shah. They’re still bottom of the table, but is there some cause for concern? Let’s do a quick preview while I am still in Manila.
Form since NAS Came Back
Since Noh Alam Shah’s return, TPUFC have played three matches, achieving a win, a loss, and a draw. That is quite remarkable considering that prior to his return, they were on a run of 6 losses, and their last win was in July 2024. Yikes.
However, since his return, by all accounts, he has worked the players insanely hard. I assume that means both fitness-wise and also defensively, because they now seem a much more solid outfit. Of the 3 games, the 3-0 win against DPMM stands out as the most impressive, because for a team that has conceded 74 goals this season, keeping a clean sheet is not easy. Scoring 3 goals isn’t easy as well, of course.
He did an interview with the Straits Times and he had this to say –
Ouch. Yeah he means business.
Their match against Young Lions was an even one, and ended with a deserved draw, but prior to that NAS’s return, most people would have predicted Young Lions to triumph over them.
In the 3 matches played, a key factor that has aided NAS is that Salif Cisse is back fit and firing. He has scored twice and also picked up a brilliant assist for Syahadat Masnawi.
During their terrible run, Salif Cisse was often not available. He has only made 12 appearances in the league so far, out of a possible 21 games. Now that he’s back, TPUFC’s attack finally has a focal point, and they always look to launch it quick in defence up to him because he is capable of creating his own chances. If we keep him quiet, it would go a long way to getting that victory for us.
Terrible Defence
The difficulty with this preview of course is wondering whether NAS’s impact is big enough to change what we’ve seen with this team in the first half of the season.
As mentioned earlier, they have by far the worst defensive record in the league, conceding 74 goals in 21 games. A -51 goal difference looks bad no matter how you slice it. A lot of that is due to poor organisation. Matt Silva has come in and already shown that he is a better communicator with the backline than the other goalies that TPU used this season.
However, I don’t think one man can work wonders. Another unique stat for you is that TPUFC have conceded the most penalties this season, 8. 5 of those were from handballs, and the other 3 from mistimed tackles. What does that stat tell you? Maybe nothing. It could simply be that as a defensive team, they sit a lot in their own box, so given they spend so much time there, they are more likely to concede penalties.
It could also be an indicator that they tend to panic a lot, and make bad decisions.
However you look at it, I think our Sailors will be disappointed if they don’t cause a lot of trouble for Tanjong Pagar here.
Rotation
With the huge tie against Muangthong coming up, rotation will definitely enter the mind of Coach Ranko. How will he shuffle the pack?
Diogo Costa didn’t play in the Shopee Cup, so he might come in for this one. Lionel did not even travel with the team to Manila – is he injured? Noone knows. Shawal did not even see a minute against Kaya FC, even when we were going for goals.
Could Bill have played himself into the reckoning of the coaches, at least to start games in the league, if not in the ACL2?
I suspect that the lineup will not be super-weak, given that any slip-up here will mean that our Sailors head into Thailand off the back of 2 bad results.
Conclusion
I think no matter how resurgent TPUFC are, we have to win this. Ultimately, this is largely still the same set of players that have struggled this season – except we went ahead and took their captain.
For the sake of wrapping up the league, for the sake of entering the Muangthong game with a bit of spring in our step, we have to win this.
COME ON YOU BOYS IN BLUE
My predicted line-up
Zharfan Rohaizad
Hami Syahin, Lionel Tan, Bailey Wright, Toni Datkovic, Sergio Carmona
Hariss Harun, Anumanthan Kumar
Lennart Thy, Abdul Rasaq, 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: Sailors 3 TPUFC 0
Joseph’s prediction: Sailors 3 TPUFC 1
Written by Eddy Hirono
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Picture credit – TPUFC Facebook
