Author name: Eddy Hirono

Two 1-1 draws in a row against Young Lions. That was the record we had going into this game. Completely unacceptable for a club of our stature, no matter how well the Young Lions played, especially if you take into account the constraints they have. I had an interesting discussion with someone in our SFT Telegram chat after the preview was released. A concerned group member asked if I was perhaps being a little too dismissive towards Young Lions’ chances, given that they had scored more goals recently (actually just in one game, they fired blanks before that game for consecutive games), the Sailors were playing back-to-back games and may thus turn to their depth on the bench, Súper was injured, etc etc. I love it when readers give feedback on the Telegram chat – it shows me someone is reading, and it also makes it less of a one-way process? It is good I think to hear back from readers on what they feel. It allows me to ponder the articles I write, and what kind of information they would like to see. “Insider information” has been suggested by many readers and friends, but I always assure them that even if I ever had insider information (which I don’t), it’s always club over self – I’d never put something out to generate clicks if it was not information meant to be public knowledge. But yeah please keep the feedback coming in the telegram chats, Instagram DMs, or whatever floats your boat! Back to the question posed by the reader – was I underestimating the Young Lions? My answer was quite simple – you can see it below – The reason for the confidence was really because despite the two 1-1 draws, there should be no excuses for our Sailors. Short turnaround time? Well the Young Lions played one day before us, additional 24 hours rest does make a difference, of course, but we have bench players who would be key players for their first team. If Rusyaidi Salime, Bill Mahmadou and Haiqal Pashia were available for the Young Lions, they’d play every minute of every game. Arshad Shamim is the starkest illustration – I really like him, but he came on for 2min, and just last season he was a mainstay in the Young Lions team. These players came on for a total of 42 min in the game – Bill didn’t even see the pitch. The strength in depth is just simply incomparable – just look at the two benches and you’ll see that they couldn’t even get 9 subs. I am not shitting on Young Lions, and I always sympathise with them because alot of factors are out of their control, such as whether they can train with certain players due to NS obligations, whether certain players can be released for games, what is the condition of the players when they do turn up for training and games, the fact that they play with 2 foreigners and no senior players while other teams have veterans and foreign players – it will take a whole article or even a novella to cover the problems Young Lions face. Perhaps you can take a look at an excerpt from this excellent Straits Times article about Daniel Goh, when he mentions his stint during NS. How to excel for Young Lions like that? It is no wonder that Daniel Goh’s form now is so much better than it was last time. Second Gear – Finally Some Control Back to the game, the Sailors did not even have to exit second gear to win this game. They were off to the races early and by half-time had a 3-goal lead. While the first goal was unlucky for the Young Lions, the next 2 goals came because the Sailors were hungry and a lot less cautious than they were in the previous 2 games, actively trying to force mistakes from the Young Lions. The second half honestly just seemed like a damage limitation exercise from the Young Lions while the Sailors seemed to ease off considerably once we got the 4th goal. A well-taken volley by Kobayashi in the final minutes meant there was a bit of angst at the lack of a clean sheet, but it was still a commanding win, and for the first time in a while, we were not anxious moving into the final minutes. In fact, it was our first comfortable victory (victory by more than a 1-goal margin) since the beginning of April, when we comfortably beat Hougang 5-0. I had previously bemoaned the lack of control we have in our games, even in our wins, as compared to Tampines, for example, who seem to pass the game to a slow death once they have the lead (unless of course Yasir Hanapi decides to get himself sent off wheeeee) – so to essentially play the whole second half as a training session was good for my nerves honestly. On an unrelated note – can you imagine how fricking exciting it is to be a Balestier Khalsa fan? 77 goals in 14 games. 34 scored, 43 conceded. That’s 5.5 goals a match to watch. Absolute value for money I tell you. The Sailors are close behind by the way – just that of course Sailors conceding goals doesn’t make me excited, it just makes me sad. Sailors have scored 39 and conceded 23 for a total of 62 goals in 14 games. 4.43 goals a game. Sailors, please make it less exciting, please please concede fewer goals. No Clean Sheet I don’t know if it annoyed you – but it certainly annoyed me that we didn’t keep a clean sheet against Young Lions. I referenced the 5-0 win against Hougang at the start of April as our last comfortable victory. That was also the last time we kept a clean sheet. It’s been more than 2 months. I posed the question to Anu post-match to see if

In the last post-match thoughts, I complained about how there was chaos, and our defence looked so fragile. Well Wednesday’s night game surely saw a huge improvement in that regard. It must be said that some of the shots stats may be inflated by the fact that Tampines had to play half an hour with 10 men after Yasir got sent off. However, even before the red card, we never really looked in danger and the stats above bear that out. 6 shots and 2 on target is a stark improvement from the 15 shots we conceded to them when we faced them at Our Tampines Hub. Let’s address some of the thoughts I had about the game. Defence-First Policy It is no secret that Coach Risto was mighty pissed off at how we defended against Balestier. The way we set up against Tampines was definitely a reaction to that. I mentioned in the preview that Abdul Rasaq may play an important role dropping back into midfield to try and limit Kyoga’s influence, and that is something that was a huge part of our play against Tampines. We really did show them a lot of respect, and tried to stop them from dominating the ball too easily and getting the ball into the final third. I would elaborate more but I don’t think I can describe it better than how Rhysh Roshan Rai did in his Twitter post (and his ensuing exchange with our legend Stipe Plazibat), so let’s just dive right into it. Look at that cute baby. I gotta say I really miss Stipe, and I wonder how he would have done in the current Sailors setup, and how he would have done instead of Kim Shin-Wook last season. It’s also so nice to see that he remains a Sailors fan, Stipe if you’re reading this please come back and visit! But ok I digress. In the interesting exchange between Stipe and Rhysh, one thing they definitely agree on is that this setup works on defence. I don’t think it’s surprising that Coach Risto went for something much more defensively solid this time, and we really succeeded in keeping Tampines out of their beloved central areas, and stopped them from passing us to death in our own half. That’s a huge positive. Kudos to Diego and Rasaq for sticking dutifully to their defensive work. I also thought Anu had one of his better games this season, returned to his natural defensive midfielder role – snapping into challenges, and really using his physicality against some of the smaller Tampines players. Of course, my man of the match was Súper. He made interception after interception as Tampines was forced to try slightly riskier entry passes than usual. He also kept Boris Kopitovic very quiet all night, and of course, he was fouled by Yasir for the second bookable offence, so his impact on this game is really huge. That moment where he bailed Hariss out after Boris tackled our captain will really stick in the mind. What a moment – as good as a goal. Was the Balance Right? But as Stipe alluded to in his responses, was the balance right in what was a game we really wanted to win? Stipe isn’t alone in having these thoughts – when we interviewed Sailors fan Bryan after the game, he felt that having established a solid defensive platform, we needed to turn up the pressure a little bit and get more on the attack. This was a game where it was vital to get the first goal. Faris Ramli managed to crack one in from long range (glorious goal, btw), and that threw our gameplan out the window a little. I think the plan was always to sit tight, break, get a goal and then manage the game from there out. We have Yasir to thank I think, for his rash challenge which put his team in a poor position. Had he not been sent off, I do wonder if we could have been picked off on the counter-attack as we went out of our shells a little to chase the game. But with the man advantage, I felt that we didn’t do enough to really press it home. I think it says a lot about Bernie that in a game where we really needed a goal, and Rasaq had to come off injured, that he wasn’t even sent to warm up, and ultimately, was not brought on. Could he be injured? If he is so injured that he can’t even play 10min in a game, then I wonder what’s the point of including him on the bench. Considering that our gameplan near the end of the game was to swing crosses into the box to put Tampines under some pressure, would a big burly forward like Bernie not at least help to create some panic amongst the Tampines ranks? I think we missed a good opportunity at the end to make it a little bit more difficult for them. Maybe a cheeky last 5min with Lionel Tan upfront would have helped too! (throwback to Jorge Felipe scoring a late late goal against Young Lions 2 years back) Was it a Penalty? I have to admit that when I first saw it, it did not look like a penalty to me. Instinctively, I also felt like it could not have been a clear and obvious error from the referee (who did not give the penalty), so when there was a VAR check, I assumed it would not result in a penalty. But wow – when Taqi jogged over to the screen to do an on-field review, we started celebrating in the stands. All football fans know by now – when the referee runs over to the screen, it usually results in him reversing his initial call. Having watched the challenge by Faris from another angle though – I think it is a clear penalty. Faris goes into a challenge he’s

At the tail-end of last season, I used the headline “Chaos” to describe the Singapore Cup game against Balestier Khalsa that ended 3-3. It was much the same on Thursday night, and while we got the all-important win that I craved and talked about in our preview article, I think there is some cause for worry watching the game against Balestier Khalsa yet again end in a goalfest. Back in October 2022, it was a mad game where both sides had 20+ shots each. While it wasn’t exactly the same volume this time round, Balestier actually out-shot us, taking 16 shots to our 12 shots. In terms of shots on target, we had 8, while they had 7. We really need to work on our defence. Frail Defence I’ve said it many times before, but it is so worrying that Zharfan is the keeper that has made the most saves this season. In some of our games, we have seen our opponents take shots from improbable angles, or far out, but that was not the case this time. Of the 16 shots taken by Balestier, only 3 were from outside the box. You don’t always need stats to back up what you can see and feel from the game – and from the stands, there was a growing sense of unease in the last 10 minutes in the game when it really looked like we were unable to slow the game down, and make Balestier chase shadows. Instead, we were treated to a barrage of long balls into the box, and some very nervy defending. I think if you were to pick a word to describe the way we defended, it would be “soft”. The goal by Fabian Kwok I think we can say that Nur Adam should have done way better as he seemed to completely lose his man and not put in a good aerial challenge. First set piece into the box, and right after we scored, we immediately hand our opponents a set-piece goal. Soft. Second goal from them was just as disappointing. Routine ball into the box and Shuhei Hoshino wins the header. This is not unexpected – he is called “Jumbo” for a reason. However, what is very disappointing is a little bit of lack of co-ordination and perhaps not anticipating the danger. In the screencap above, you can see that Ryoya has already started to make a run into the box, anticipating that Jumbo is going to win the header and knock the ball down into the box. Adam Swandi sees the danger, and you can see him pointing out to Hariss to follow Ryoya’s run. However, Hariss doesn’t seem to hear Adam and as such doesn’t realise the danger until it is too late. Again, it is very soft. The third goal I will give the Sailors backline a pass – it was a fortuitous strike by Darren Teh that was mishit so bad that it dropped straight to Shuhei for him to score. I think you’d need to be Dr. Strange to be able to predict what would happen from there. However, the penalty is probably in my mind, the worst of the lot. With a 2-goal lead and 10 minutes to go, you’d think the Sailors should be calm and see the game out. However, that little shirt tug is anything but calm. Super came on as a second-half sub and he should have seen that all game, Daniel Goh had been going down to try to win fouls for his team (no slight against him by the way, it is his job to do so, and the penalty was rightly awarded). So when he’s running nowhere, he’s on his weaker left foot, and Hami Syahin is literally waiting for him to take a heavy touch, don’t give the referee a chance to award the penalty. Unfortunately, Super couldn’t resist it, and had a cheeky tug at Daniel Goh. Whether the tug was enough to send Daniel Goh down I think is irrelevant. Of course, he milked it, but why wouldn’t he? We shouldn’t put ourselves in such positions. We cannot afford a repeat of this against Tampines next week. Purring Attack Our front 3 + Diego Lopes are just such a joy to watch. After all the negatives of the preceding paragraphs, let’s talk about some good stuff. Shawal One week after scoring a fantastic winning goal against Albirex, we go and do one better by putting in a legit Goal of the Season contender. It was a weak and indecisive clearance from Hairul, but when it dropped to Shawal on his weak foot, I think only the most optimistic of Sailors fans would have said that Shawal was gonna score from near the halfway line. But the ball arced and dipped from high in the night sky, and eventually landed into the back of the net without bouncing. Shoutout to Nur Adam as well, whose brilliantly-timed tackle (while on a yellow card, mind) set the wheels in motion. A fantastic opportunistic strike which Shawal will not forget in a hurry. When we spoke to Shawal about the goal, interestingly he said it was not the best goal he ever scored. Check out his interview, and also watch the goal that he claims was his best ever strike. (We disagree with Shawal btw! We think that Thursday’s strike was from further out, and was more difficult because he had to hit it when the ball was bouncing.) Abdul Rasaq While he didn’t score, he was instrumental in two of the goals we did. For our 4th goal, his clever backheel sets Lestienne bursting into the box and crossing for Shawal to tap in, while for the 5th goal, it is his tenacity to win the header in midfield which then allows Diego Lopes to set Lestienne free for the 5th goal. He will bemoan the two times that he would have felt he could have done better in front

When you want to win a title, you cannot afford to drop points in games you completely dominate. This was Young Lions, all over again. When you take a look at the advanced statistics, Young Lions and DPMM are comfortably the worst sides in the league, so it is very disappointing that we gave up 3 very poor goals and failed to get the 3 points we needed to close the gap on the leaders Albirex before we play them this weekend. How did we end up drawing a game where we looked so comfortable? Let’s take a look at a few points. Height Differential You may have noticed, that for all 3 DPMM goals, we were beaten in the air. The first goal came from a corner, where somehow Voronkov was marked by Adam Swandi. The second goal came when Voronkov won a header in the box and then we did not deal well with the second ball and the resulting shot. The third goal came when Adam Swandi was once again beaten in the air and the flick-on left DPMM with a numerical overload to attack our box. If you think I am blaming Adam Swandi for the goals, let me clarify that I am not. In the absence of Hariss Harun, Coach Risto decided for a midfield of Adam Swandi and Hami Syahin, which is a technically secure midfield, but one that lacks the size and height in my opinion, to deal with the physical threat of DPMM. For context, Adam Swandi is 171cm, and Voronkov is 187cm. Quite why Adam Swandi was detailed to pick up Voronkov for a corner kick, I will never know. If I have some sympathy for the coach, we had a very short team – the average height was definitely lower than DPMM’s. However, if you look at the graphic below, could Anu not have been the one assigned to man-mark Voronkov, while Adam Swandi defends the space in front of the keeper? Anyway, we can file this away as a good set piece from DPMM which gave them an early lead. However, Sailors did so well to come back and be in a winning position. This inability to deal with the aerial challenges would surface again later in our 2nd and 3rd goal. At some point you have to wonder, should we perhaps have started with someone taller? One solution might have been to start Bill at centreback with Lionel, and then shift Anu up into midfield. That would have given us a bit more height, and perhaps we’d be better equipped to deal with the aerial threat of DPMM? At this point I may sound like I am contradicting myself, because it was also Anu who was beaten for the 2nd goal. However, I guess all I am saying is that when faced with a team containing quite a few players who are pretty short, it becomes clear that we may struggle defensively. And so that leads us on to the next point of discussion. Is Bernie Struggling? Let’s discuss Bernie’s impact on the team. I’ve seen the memes floating around – he’s the next 007, 0 goals 0 assists in 7 games (or so opposition supporters hope). However I think this was the first time I thought Bernie actually moved well. If you look at the replays of the goals, it is his runs which help to pull the defence away, giving space for Lestienne to score. Here above, you see him highlighted in yellow, and his run has created the space for Diego to ghost into the area to finish with aplomb for the 1st goal. You see in the build-up to the 2nd goal, Maxime is all the way on the right and is trying to make up the ground to get involved in this attack. It is Bernie’s unselfish run into the space ahead of him that drags his defender away from Maxime, and results in Maxime receiving the pass in acres of space, and with tons of time too – so all he needs is to pick his head up and curl it into the far corner. It is the same for the 3rd goal, where he drags his defender away from Maxime, giving him the space to cut in and shoot. Three goals, three unselfish runs. If Bernie isn’t scoring goals, then hey at least he’s contributing to his teammates scoring goals. Of course, I still hope we can see him break his duck soon, and be more of a goal threat himself. He’s a huge guy, and I would ideally like to see him physically bully opposing centrebacks. Attack – Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde It’s very strange how in the first half, our attack looked so free-flowing, and it looked like we were gonna end the night with a huge scoreline of 5,6,7 goals, but in the second half, we were kinda toothless. Here’s a stat for you – all 6 of our shots on target came in the first half. I am not a master tactician or something, so I can’t put my finger on why the second half saw us not register a single shot on target. I know we tried, but it was just not to be. One thing I noticed that I felt was quite strange was we did not seem to be targeting the players who were already on yellow cards and clearly tiring. The DPMM defence picked up 4 yellow cards in the space of 10 minutes in the second half as they struggled to cope with the pace and intensity of our players. I felt we should have kept that going – and it was notable that Coach Risto did not send on our substitutes who might have helped to really up the intensity with their fresh legs. The only sub he made was Abdul Rasaq for Bernie in the 75th minute. Coach Risto has to figure out why the second half performance