Eddy Hirono – Page 18 – SailorFanTalk

[Preview] Disgustingly Good

2 Comments / Match Previews / Eddy Hirono

Albirex are not a good team. They are a disgustingly good team. You probably didn’t pay good money just to hear me tell you this. Wait a minute, this website is free and you don’t pay at all lol – but the point remains. You do not need me to tell you that Albirex are disgustingly good – but let me take a few paragraphs to tell you how monumental this task ahead of us is. Attack is the Best Defence, but Defence is also the Best Defence, and Fouls are also the Best Defence What the heck was that long sentence that doesn’t seem to make any sense? Patience, my friend, read on. Albirex are the top-scorers in the league, and also boast the best defensive record. They’ve scored 30 goals, 4 more than the Sailors who are the 2nd-highest scorers, despite playing one game less. They have also conceded 3 goals only. THREE GOALS. After playing 9 matches, to have conceded only 3 goals is frankly ridiculous. Of course, Hassan Sunny’s addition has boosted their backline with experience, and also a fearsome shot-stopping goalkeeper, but according to the SPL website, Hassan Sunny has only had to make 19 saves. Compare that with Zharfan having to make 43 saves, and I think you can draw your own inferences about how much protection the 10 outfield players are giving to their respective custodians in goal. Their attacking prowess is no fluke as well. They have the most shots in the league, and the most shots on target in the league. I’ll throw in another interesting stat for you – despite their superb form, Albirex are also the team with the highest number of fouls in the league. Their tally of 133 fouls in the league is the same as DPMM’s, but DPMM has played a match more, so the foul-iest team in the league is Albirex! Bet you wouldn’t have thought that. This is a purring attacking side capable of mixing it up with a tinge of dirtiness. To confound your mind even more – despite having the most fouls in the league, they have the fewest yellow cards, and no red cards. A purring attacking side capable of mixing it up with a tinge of dirtiness but also disciplined enough to avoid censure from the referees? Wow, end me now. Dangermen Usually when I do previews, I like to talk about some of the dangermen in our opponents’ squad. It’s … kinda hard to do this here. Do we go with Seia Kunori? The top-scorer with 7 goals? Keito Komatsu with 5 goals? The commanding midfield of Albirex? Hassan Sunny in goal? Old man Tadanari Lee with his bags of experience (and also 4 assists, the most in Albirex)? Riku (who we’ve written an article about earlier this season)? It’s really impossible to pick just one, or even two dangermen to focus on. And that poses a problem for us. Our defence has not been the most commanding this season. We’re obviously still missing Pedro Henrique and we’ve conceded 15 goals from 10 games so far. It’s the 3rd-best record in the league, but nowhere near good enough if we have serious ambitions of winning the title. This defensive porosity has also resulted in us dropping 4 unnecessary points against Young LIons and DPMM Brunei. I posed the question to one of our supporters last week – if we cannot keep out DPMM and Young Lions, what hope do we have against Albirex? The fan (Ryan) said what he needed to say – that though the chances are slim, there’s still a chance. I guess because the ball is round, anything can happen, at the end of the day it’s 11 v 11. There, I’ve thrown out all the football cliches I can throw out. Back to the point of dangermen – when a team doesn’t have just one or two dangermen, it becomes very difficult to try and keep them out. For Albirex, if they keep Maxime and Diego quiet, chances are they will get the win. Of the 26 goals scored by the Sailors, only 4 of those goals did not feature either a goal or an assist by the dynamic duo. If they can work out a plan to shut the two down, we are in some serious trouble. We have a lot of talent on the pitch, so I hope that Coach Risto will come up with a plan to get the local boys more involved as well. For us, it will be difficult if we try to focus on any of their dangermen – they’re ALL dangermen. If we focus too much on a few of them, we lose sight of the others, and that could be fatal. Not all Doom and Gloom We have Maxime in the form of his life. Top of the scoring charts, top of the assists charts, and always capable of some magic. We have Mamat looking back to his best and hopefully coming back this game. We have Diego still chipping in with assists. We have quality off the bench that we can call upon. If Tampines can beat them, then there is no excuse for us to not believe that we can as well. We have a 100% home record as well, so maybe there’s something magical about the Bishan pitch? I am really clutching at straws here, I am freaking afraid of Albirex lol. Conclusion I always back my team and I am always optimistic, but I honestly find it hard to be optimistic about this one. I’ll still of course be supporting the team and willing them on to victory (from Japan, sad that I am not around for this match), but I’ll be happy with a point here. A defeat leaves us 7 points behind, and they will still have a game in hand. In a shortened season this year, that will be almost impossible to come back from. We have also not

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[Post-Match Thoughts] Dropped Points, Again

1 Comment / Post-Match Thoughts / Eddy Hirono

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

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[Preview] Unexpected Home Advantage

Leave a Comment / Match Previews / Eddy Hirono

The fact that this match is taking place later today at Jalan Besar Stadium is a bit of a bonus. This match was supposed to be played in Bandar Seri Begawan but they are still experiencing some stadium issues. spl.sg had a bit of a weird stat when they previewed this game – have a look yourself. I mean….yes, but surely the circumstances are very different, considering that home games in 2019 for them involved an away team travelling to Brunei and playing in front of a crowd without their fans. Considering how many games the Sailors play at Jalan Besar Stadium, and how the Sailors fans are likely to turn up in numbers for this one – this is almost home advantage for us. Hopefully we capitalise. This preview is gonna be a short one cos it’s been a long work week and also because I think there’s not much to talk about facing DPMM. Let’s dive straight into some key points then – Still no SEA Games boys Nur Adam, Abdul Rasaq and Bill Mamadou will not be back in time for this one, despite Singapore getting dumped pretty unceremoniously from the SEA Games. They should be back for the next game, but this one just comes a bit too early. This might mean another start for Nathan Mao, who certainly didn’t look out of place when he played in the last game. (check out our comments in the previous article outlining our post-match thoughts against Geylang). I think many supporters would actually be very excited to see Nathan Mao start again, and hopefully this time, end up with a goal or an assist. The other possibility of course, is Danish Qayyum, who was just a bit short for the last game. We Sailors fans have not seen much of him, and it would be nice for him to get a start here I think. He’s obviously abit more experienced than Nathan Mao, and it might be important for him to be re-integrated into the team, especially when facing the two DPMM dangermen. Voronkov and Hakeme Between the two of them, they have 12 goal contributions (goals and assists). To say that they are a vital part of the team would be an understatement. In the previous match at Bishan Stadium, Hakeme particularly, was a danger throughout. With a good shot and a quick turn of pace, our defenders are going to have a handful with them. Voronkov and Hakeme are also very trigger-happy, so Zharfan will need to be at his best. It must of course be said that even though DPMM is a trigger-happy side, they create much lower quality chances, which is why they outshoot the Sailors (111 shots v 107), but have ended up with 14 goals compared to our 23. High Press In recent matches, we have bemoaned the fact that the Sailors seem to stand off a bit too much from our opponents, and don’t look to dispossess them early in their half. Against DPMM, I hope this changes. We will not get a better chance than this – DPMM’s defenders are not good at playing out from the back. In fact, they have the lowest passing accuracy (73%) in the league by some margin. The next closest to them would be Young Lions’ 77% passing accuracy. In case you’re wondering, LCS’s passing accuracy is 85%. DPMM also have the lowest average number of passes per game in the league. This is not a team that is going to be able to play out of defence if we get our pressing right. I really hope Coach Risto is going to set up the team to press the shit out of DPMM, and force them into errors. In terms of a long ball to break out of defence should they choose to employ it, Voronkov is also not the paciest forward especially given his age, so we really shouldn’t show them that much respect. Conclusion In every metric that can be measured, we’re a much better team than DPMM. Goals scored, shots on target, conversion percentage, pass accuracy, etc etc etc. We simply have to win this game to temporarily leapfrog Tampines into second place. COME ON YOU SAILORS! Score Prediction Joseph, Ethan, and myself 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: DPMM 0 Sailors 4 Joseph’s prediction: DPMM 1 Sailors 3 Ethan’s prediction: DPMM 0 Sailors 4 Written by Eddy Hirono If you’d like to support the work we do here at SailorFanTalk, you may want to visit https://ko-fi.com/sailorfantalk and leave us a tip!

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[Post-Match Thoughts] Not Our Best But Some Positives

3 Comments / Post-Match Thoughts / Eddy Hirono

I usually try to wait for Instat to come out with some stats about the game before giving you my thoughts, but those jokers are taking their own sweet time, so here goes. In the preview article, I spoke about the need to capitalise on Tampines slipping up against Balestier Khalsa. We did just that, getting the crucial three points. However, I think the performance left much to be desired. We were ultimately bailed out by two free-kicks from Maxime Lestienne (who else) and a great defensive display by Zulqarnaen Suzliman. Here’s a few post-match thoughts. Maybe I’ll start with the positives and then slowly work towards the negatives. Maxime Lestienne The dude’s a machine. What else can I say? 8 goals and 8 assists in 9 games is pretty mental. That’s 1.78 goal contributions per game. Imagine lining up against a player knowing that statistically, he is gonna score/assist about 2 goals – that must be kinda demoralising. But it’s what we’ve come to expect from our brilliant Belgian. If Forrest is reading this, please sign him up. Renew his contract for x number of years, where x is 55 or 78 or something. We want him here forever. Not only is he a real asset to the team, he is also someone that excites us fans. Speaking of someone who excites fans … Nathan Mao There has been much buzz online about whether Nathan’s 5 minutes cameo against Tampines Rovers was a publicity stunt, and whether he deserved those 5 minutes. I mean for me, I didn’t think it was that deep, really. The game was lost, and there was no harm giving a few minutes to a prodigy from the academy, just to allow him to experience an SPL game. If I were to be cynical, maybe it was to distract the supporters, give them something else to get excited about on a day when we played at a level so far below Tampines Rovers. If you wanna relive the match and how it played out, be my guest, check out our depressing post-match thoughts where we spoke about Nathan as well. So, Nathan not only played against Geylamg. he started. In so doing, he became the youngest-ever player to start a SPL game at 15 years and 42 days old. Previously, the record holder was Raoul Suhaimi for Young Lions (15 years and 239 days old). Not only did Nathan start, he played an hour. Of course, this is in part due to the U23 rule where a U23 player must be played, and most of them are at the SEA Games. We referenced this in our preview article as well. However, it must be said that the U23 player can be removed at half-time, and we have seen clubs in the league do that, LCS included last season. It is to Nathan’s credit that he stayed on past half-time. In the first half, Nathan looked brave with the ball and in a half that was crying out for some attacking verve and impetus, something for the supporters to get excited about, Nathan was arguably the only one to provide it. Trying my best to analyse his performance without the “oh-he’s-15-years-old” lens, I genuinely feel like he did very well. There were some moments where he brought the fans off their seats – for example, 3:25 onwards in this brilliantly-shot video. Throughout the time he was on the pitch, he never looked out of place, and that’s the greatest compliment I can pay him given he is at such an early point in his nascent football career. It would be easy for someone making his first professional start at that age to just take the safe option all the time, but he mixed it up, sometimes opting for the easy pass, but sometimes also running with the ball and beating his man, getting fouls. Very encouraging to watch, and he was given a warm reception from the fans when he was subbed off. Even our former CEO had nice things to say about him in the post-match interview. Keep it up, Nathan! Zulqarnaen Suzliman (Mamat) A monster game from a full-back who we expected huge things from ever since he came back from Young Lions last year. His performances for the national team and in the league actually got me quite excited when he came back, but unfortunately due to injury, I think it took a long while before we saw the true Mamat. This was a monster performance and a vital one, because in defence, it looked like we were so vulnerable to the counter-attack but Mamat was able to bail us out on three occasions. First, he blocked a shot on goal off the line, and he then denied Yushi Yamaya on two separate occasions with determined last-ditch tackles. Don’t take my word for it – the club has put together a nice little compilation of those moments. Check it out here and decide for yourself – We spoke to Mamat after the game, and he showed humility and said he’s happy he saved the team from conceding three goals, and that it was just his defensive instincts kicking in. Aside from contributing in defence, he also went up the other end and got fouled for the crucial freekick that Maxime scored to equalise. It came as a result of the team collectively picking up the pace in the second half, and Mamat tried to run beyond the defence to get onto a clipped pass over the top. This led to the defender fouling him to impede his progress. In a match where Geylang were content to shuffle from side to side in a deep defensive block and attack on the counter, it was vital that our wide players (including the fullbacks) tried to get behind the defence and outnumber the Geylang defenders. Thank you Mamat for your contribution this game! Substitutions of Hafiz Nor and Shawal Anuar I mentioned above that collectively

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[Preview] Must Capitalise on Tampines Slipping Up

1 Comment / Match Previews / Eddy Hirono

You know I don’t actually hate Tampines Rovers or anything, but it’s always funny to see teams slip up in a bad way when they are involved in the title race with your team. Nothing personal, just business. Tampines have been impressive this season, but in their last three games, they have not reached anywhere near the high standards they set for themselves. No goals from open play in 2 of the matches, defensively looking a bit suspect, Boris Kopitovic is the saddest-looking person despite scoring 3 goals in 3 games. All penalties, of course, and he even tried his best to miss one of them. All of this is well and good, and is very funny, and it makes me smile, and it makes the world a better place, but it all will mean nothing though, if the Sailors cannot capitalise on Sunday night. Had Tampines won last night, as they should have, if you believe the bookmakers and pundits (Balestier were at 10-1 odds to win), then they would have opened up a 7-point gap on us with 1 game in hand. As it stands though, they are a much more catchable 4 points away from us. If we win the game in hand, we go to 1 point below them. Not ideal of course, given the disparity between our resources and their resources, but also not fatal, and with time and remaining games to catch up to them. We come up against Geylang though – who are a bit of a bogey team for us. In the last 5 games against Geylang, we have lost 2 and drawn 1. Not good enough at all. The manner of the losses as well was deeply depressing. If you remember those games from last season, we were comprehensively outplayed and Geylang just looked like they were much more up for the fight than we were. But no matter, different season, different outcome perhaps. We swept Geylang aside easily 3-0 barely two months ago, and we will be looking for a repeat. Here are a few key points that I think will decide the game. Who Starts as our U23 Player? With our U23 players all at the SEA Games, we cannot count on any of Abdul Rasaq, Bill or Nur Adam to start the game on Sunday. As such, we are looking at Danish Qayyum as the most likely starter. He has played only 4 minutes this season, coming on as a late sub for us in our season opener against Tanjong Pagar. He came on at left midfield, which is the position that he played most last season with Young Lions. To be honest, I am surprised we have not seen more of him , especially in games where we have a comfortable lead. Anaqi Ismit is also U23, but I believe he is currently injured still, and so is not an option. Another option who may start is Nathan Mao, I guess? After all the fanfare of his 5-min cameo which sparked a lot of debate from people who said that it was just a PR stunt, or that he “did not deserve to break the record”, it would be a strong show of support for him and his burgeoning talent if he were to start in this game. I find this to be unlikely though, given that attacking midfield is an important part of our build-up play, and if he starts, he will come up directly against some really seasoned and good defensive players, such as Rio Sakuma, Takahiro Tezuka, and Josh Pereira. But who knows, maybe a half for him to show what he can do, and then replace him with an experienced player for the second half? One can dream! Zharfan’s Key Role in this Game Some things don’t need to be said – for example, I don’t need to tell you that Maxime Lestienne is a key player for us. He has the most goals (6) and most assists (8) for us, and 14 goal contributions in the first round of the SPL season is insane. He seems to have taken the Player of the Year snub quite personally. Which is good for us. But some other things need to be said. Zharfan will play a key role in this game, and he must be on top form. I’ve mentioned this before in a previous article, but it is pretty worrying that Zharfan has had to make so many saves. We even spoke to him about it in this little interview. A title-contending team should not be giving up that many shots, even if they are from speculative range. This match should see this pattern of him having to make saves continue, because Geylang is a team that loves taking shots. The stats above are taken from spl.sg, and you can see that Yushi Yamaya and Vincent Bezecourt seem to have a shoot-on-sight policy. 53 shots, and of those, 22 are on target. While a good number of these shots have been from long range, they are also getting their shots on target, as can be seen from this table below. Anything could happen from a shot on target, and I hope we can slowly but surely start to work on limiting our opponents and stopping them from taking shots. But if the shots are gonna come in, then Zharfan, we’re gonna need him to have a good game. Keep it simple, no spills, no thrills for us. Who Starts in Attack? With Kodai Tanaka out for the season, and Abdul Rasaq away at the SEA Games, we have only two realistic options when it comes to centre-forward. The first option is Bernie, while the other is Shawal. Bernie has not set the world alight so far, it’s fair to say. And of course, this should be expected given his injury troubles and how long he has been away from professional football. He has shown his physicality thus far, but the sharpness of

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[Post-Match Thoughts] Poor Officiating but Even Poorer Sailors (Young Lions 1 LCS 1)

Leave a Comment / Post-Match Thoughts / Eddy Hirono

In the preview article, I said this would be comfortable for us, especially if we get an early goal. Oops. Our Sailors did the first part, but then made Young Lions look like they prime Mourinho’s Internazionale. Speaking to fans after the game, Ishaq (who is a regular member of the Crew and always sings loud and proud) made the point that as a Sailors fan he is disappointed, but as a Singaporean fan, he is proud of the Young Lions for the resolute defensive display. You can check out his interview, along with that of Charmaine (also loud and proud Crew member) over here. Well – to that I say, while I agree with him. It’s a bit …. bittersweet, no? It is of course, a very unique situation, because very few countries’ leagues have both a national team and a club team in the same league. Usually, you support your club team for 80% of the season, and then when it comes to international breaks, you forget about your club for a bit and support your country. Young Lions are abit special I guess. I chose “Hide Your Pain Harold” as the cover pic because we pretend to smile about the Young Lions’ display but at the same time, we’re in pain because we know this was a major missed opportunity to put some points on the board. There’s tons of stuff to get into, and that’s without the usual Instat stats I like to use to supplement some of my points. For some reason, the Instat people are taking an age to come up with the stats for this game, so I decided – heck it, I’ll write my thoughts out without the stats anyway. But yes, tons of stuff to talk about, and I’ve picked out a few main points. Poor Officiating Right off the bat, I want to say this – criticising the referee for a shambolic penalty decision does not mean that I think the Sailors can just rub their hands with glee and just blame the referee for what happened. The two things are mutually exclusive. As Charmaine rightly pointed out in her post-match interview, if we created more chances, or took the few chances we had, the horrible penalty decision would not have any consequence. It would have been the difference between a 2-0 win or a 2-1 win. No big drama. However, a bad decision is still a bad decision – so let’s talk about why it is a bad decision. Once again, VAR rears its ugly head. We accept that referees are human and can make errors. However, when someone in the control room has time to rewind and agonise and deliberate over an incident from multiple angles, I don’t think it’s too much to expect higher standards. This decision was curious from start to finish – in fact, even before the penalty was awarded, you have to wonder why so much time was added on anyway. Take a look at the timestamp here. You’ve seen this a thousand times before – the keeper holds onto the ball for about 5 seconds or so, launches it high into the night sky, and the referee blows his whistle for full time. But no, not this ref. He decides to let Young Lions attack one more time by hook or by crook. 93:10, and the game still goes on. In fact, the Sailors almost scored from this after a defensive mix-up. 93:21 and you can see the ball high in the night sky here, after Super has cleared it back into YL’s half when they pumped it long. Once again – this is always a cue for the ref to go “Yup, thank you fellas, i’mma blow the whistle now, please hand me the ball”. Inexplicably, again no. By the time Young Lions get the freekick, it’s closer to 94 min than it is to 93 min. No justification for it at all – there was hardly any time-wasting by the Sailors. (EDIT (18 Apr 3pm) – I have since been educated by a friendly person in The Goal Difference Telegram chat that actually, the amount of stoppage time indicated is usually accurate as of the 88th minute. That is to say, if there are further stoppages between 88-90min, then it will be added on later as well. I wound back the tape and took a look – indeed Harhys did receive treatment for about a minute from the 89th min onwards, so I stand corrected, I have maligned the referee on this issue – he was entitled to play another minute. SORRY) As an aside, I was abit ticked off by Bernard Tan’s comments on this stoppage time issue in the Hougang game (even though the referee was absolutely spot on there to give that additional time). While Kiki’s injury and the time he took to receive treatment did contribute to added time BEYOND the allocated stoppage time, the rest of the injury stoppages that Bernard was referring to have already been accounted for in the 6min of stoppage time, so it was irrelevant to raise it again. Also surprising that he would surface when his officials made very controversial calls in both the Hougang and the Sailors game – but hey, he’s entitled to post on his own page. If you’re curious, you can go check it out, I replied to him and I hope he takes it the right way. It was unnecessary and dare I suggest, unprofessional, for him to slander Kiki Krajcek like that for no reason, especially given that he is President of FAS and he must be aware that his words carry some weight. Anyway, back to the Sailors. Sorry for that digression, I sometimes blog in a very unstructured way, but that’s cos I type whatever I think. Ok, aside from the referee unjustifiably adding on close more than 30 seconds for no reason when he had ample opportunity to blow the whistle,

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[Preview] Young Lions v LCS – Normal Service to Resume

1 Comment / Match Previews / Eddy Hirono

The last time we met Young Lions, it was an absolute disaster. If you want to relive it, you can check out our post-match thoughts, and tactical analysis back then. We struggled to create any really good chances, and considering last season’s Young Lions were on the end of some really poor scorelines, to draw 1-1 with them was terrible. The expectation is that tonight’s game will be very different, and should result in a comfortable Sailors win. It is after all, the second-best attack in the league vs the second-worst defence. Let’s take a look at some of the differences between last season’s game and this season’s game. A More Settled Defence (than last season’s SG Cup game) We started a back four of Hafiz Nor (LB), Anu (CB), Amirul Adli (CB), and Haiqal Pashia (RB)) last season against Young Lions in the 1-1 draw. That’s ridiculous considering we had the likes of Iqram Rifqi and Hariss Harun on the bench. Surely we could also have played some youngsters who were natural defenders? We have no such problems coming into this game hopefully. Nur Adam was on the bench in the last game and may come in for Chris. Bill may also come in either in central defence or on the right, if Coach Risto wants to shuffle his pack a little bit considering this is the second game in a week. Other than that, it’s highly unlikely that we have to do what we did last season. One thing about our defending this season though, is that we are allowing a large number of shots from our opponents. It has been a recurring theme this season for Zharfan to have saved a lot of shots, even if sometimes it seems that the Sailors are allowing their opponents to take shots from long range. It’s not even close, the number of shots he has saved. On top of that, he tops the list for supersaves as well, which discredits my theory a little that most of the shots faced by the Sailors have been long-range speculative attempts. Hopefully, moving forward, Coach Risto finds a way for us to be less reliant on our keeper pulling off saves. This is a Better Young Lions Team Not only have this Young Lions team added two foreigners in Jun and Kan Kobayashi (not brothers, just a common Japanese surname), they also have Jacob Mahler back in the team after his recent suspension and a horrible injury layoff last season. Interestingly, Jun Kobayashi is leading the league in number of defensive challenges won, and ranks pretty highly in aerial challenges won as well. In their 8 games this season, they have had better xG than their opponents in 3 of the games. This has resulted in them picking up 1 win and 1 draw in their 8 games so far, which is far better than last year’s record where after 28 games in the league, they only won twice and drawn twice. They have also shown their mental strength in picking up these results. Both times they were behind – 1-0 against Hougang, and 2-0 against DPMM Brunei, but managed to get 2 late goals to put points on the board. LCS Attacking Options in Form The last difference I will touch on is that LCS attackers are currently in-form. Maxime is looking insane currently. His tally of 13 goal contributions so far is the highest in the league. It would be a brave man to bet against him notching at least a couple of goals/assists tonight. Abdul Rasaq has 5 goals this season from 5 games, and has already equalled his tally from the whole of last season. Diego Lopes has 2 goals and 5 assists from 7 appearances, and has a great understanding with Maxime. I do not envy the Young Lions defenders tomorrow if these 3 start. While Bernie didn’t score on his debut, he absolutely bodied one of the Hougang defenders during his time on the pitch. He also looked like he knew how to utilise his size to hold up the ball perfectly for his teammates. It was a debut with some promise, and you don’t get many better opponents than Young Lions to try to open your account for the season. Conclusion This is a must-win game given the profile of the opposition. Anything less than a win will invite a lot of debate about whether or not the Sailors are up for the fight. I think it is going to be comfortable, especially if we can get an early goal. COME ON YOU SAILORS! Score Prediction Joseph, Ethan, and myself 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: YL 0 LCS 6 Ethan’s prediction: YL 0 LCS 4 Joseph’s prediction: YL 1 LCS 4 And here’s the leaderboard – Written by Eddy Hirono If you’d like to support the work we do here at SailorFanTalk, you may want to visit https://ko-fi.com/sailorfantalk and leave us a tip!

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[Post-Match Thoughts] Five-Star Performance (Hougang 0 LCS 5)

2 Comments / Post-Match Thoughts / Eddy Hirono

Life is much easier, and writing is much easier when the Sailors win, and win in such fashion. If you thought that this game was a walk in the park (which was something we suggested in our preview), then you’d be both wrong and right. To help illustrate that, let’s take a look at the stats. Some very interesting stats. You would be forgiven for thinking that the Sailors were lucky to win the game if you look at the respective xG achieved by each team. However, that came down to two reasons – more patient chance creation, and better individual quality. More Patient Chance Creation 2.5 xG vs 2 xG suggests that Hougang created nearly as good chances as the Sailors did – however one look at the Shots stat changes that thought. Hougang took 25 shots, mostly speculative, while the Sailors were a bit more patient with their possession, and took only 15 shots. If you do some very basic back-of-the-napkin math, Hougang clocked in at 0.08xG per shot taken, while the Sailors clocked in at 0.17xG per shot taken – so each Sailors shot was twice as likely to make it into the back of the net. That probably accounts for the Sailors’ high passing stat as well. As much as Hougang are a possession-hungry team (this was only their 2nd out of 8 games where they have less possession than their opponents), the Sailors played more passes than Hougang, perhaps in a bid to fashion better chances for their forwards. I will now show you a comparison of Sailors shots against Hougang shots, with a particular emphasis on shots that are 0.20xG and above. Hougang’s shots above 0.20xG LCS’s shots above 0.20xG (Diego’s goal + 2 Abdul Rasaq goals) In fact, if you look at Hougang’s shot chart, 14 of their 25 shots came from non-threatening areas of the pitch. Of these 14 shots, only 4 made it on target. Perhaps with a little more patience, Hougang could have fashioned slightly better shooting opportunities. That being said – Coach Risto and his staff must be analysing the tape to see if they can limit the number of shots being taken. Even if these shots are from non-threatening range, how many times have we seen bad things happen just by virtue of the fact that the ball is in dangerous areas? A wicked deflection off a defender leaving a keeper stranded, an unsighted goalkeeper not seeing a shot till it’s too late because of the mass of bodies in front of him, an unlucky bounce off an uneven pitch (thank goodness TPY Stadium is no more), a save that is parried out to another attacker – the possibilities are endless. To achieve true domination and to allow for less variables in the game, we should be trying to limit our opponents from taking such shots. Looking at the graphic above, 11 of those shots were in a decent area, and 3 were on target. On another day, some of these will go in, or lead to major chaos. Better Individual Quality SPL Twitter, SPH, and the club’s official website all led with similar headlines – Maxime Lestienne stole the show. It’d take a real fool or contrarian to argue that Maxime didn’t have a good game. 2 goals, 2 assists, all of which where he looked a class apart from the rest on the pitch. He kicked things off with a stunning free kick, and wrapped things up with an unerring finish into the far corner after blitzing past the Hougang defence. In between, he was involved in what is becoming a trademark cutback for Abdul Rasaq to finish, and also a move straight from the futsal courts where Diego used him to hold up the ball and then release to him for an easy finish in the box. It’s now 5 goals, and 8 assists in 7 games for our Belgian superstar – the only game where he did not register a goal or an assist is the 4-0 defeat to Albirex where we were reduced to ten men for the majority of the game. Even opposition fans will concede that Maxime is a class apart, and this ties in to the point made earlier. I showed you the graphic with 3 of our goals being 0.20xG and above. Well, the other 2 goals were below 0.20xG and they were Maxime’s goals. One was the beautiful freekick that had Zaiful Nizam grasping at thin air, while the other was pretty underrated if you ask me. Media outlets described it as a “neat finish”, but I don’t think that does justice to the difficulty of the finish, especially given that Zaiful is a very accomplished keeper. Maxime basically put it into the only part of the goal where Zaiful would not be able to reach, and that finish, particularly while running at pace, is not an easy one. But the night wasn’t just about Maxime. Shoutout also to Zharfan, Abdul Rasaq, and maybe a surprise one in this list, Anu. Let me elaborate Zharfan In the post-match reactions, I spoke to a fan and assumed that he would name Maxime as Man of the Match, given he notched 2 goals and 2 assists. However, I was caught by surprise a little as he named Zharfan as his pick for Man of the Match. And that got me thinking – while the score was 5-0, games really can turn on moments. Hougang is a team low on confidence, but what would have happened if they managed to get one or two goals when the Sailors had not raced away to a 3-goal lead yet? That might have turned the game, and if you look back at the game, Zharfan did pull off some crucial saves, not least the double save from Sahil who absolutely thwacked the ball at goal from a narrow angle, which was followed up by a good parry when Gabriel Quak tried to curl

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[Preview] Hougang United v LCS – Walk in the Park?

2 Comments / Match Previews / Eddy Hirono

The thing you should focus on most in this headline is the question mark. It is no surprise that LCS are huge favourites coming into this. While we stumbled last time out against Tampines Rovers, we must bear in mind that Tampines are unbeaten in a run that stretches all the way back 14 games to last season – they have been playing very well, and they were a tough opponent, as we illustrated in our preview. We have lost to Albirex and Tampines so far this season, but in all our other games, we have done enough to get the win. Some wins have been more convincing than others, but at least we are getting results, and I don’t think we played badly in those games. Contrast that with Hougang United, who have lost 5 of the 6 games they have played, and in 3 of those losses, they even took the lead first. In fact if you look at their only victory this term, their 3-2 win against Balestier Khalsa, they came close to throwing away a 2-goal lead there too, when they allowed Balestier to come back to 2-2, but managed to grab a late winner. It is perhaps an understatement to say that they have been thoroughly unconvincing this campaign. Soooooo walk in the park for the Sailors? Or walk in the park but then you look into the trees and see a pontianak (a type of ghost that loves hanging out in trees)? Let’s try to break it down. Comparing 2023 to 2022 Trying to diagnose Hougang’s problems is a tricky task – you don’t quite know where to start. Let’s take a look at the stats comparison – They are down in almost every statistic, except number of passes per game, and pass accuracy (which feed into a superior ball possession stat too). Worryingly, their chances created and number of key passes is almost half – which suggests that while they are holding the ball, they are not translating it to goalscoring chances – it is inefficient football, or “sterile possession”, a term used to describe late Wenger-era Arsenal, where the teams were accused of holding the ball for the sake of holding the ball. But why is this the case? No Shahdan, no Krajcek One possible reason is that the team really misses their key players. Krajcek’s absence is perhaps the easiest factor to pinpoint. Just this season, Hougang looked good against Geylang in the first half. Then, Krajcek went off, and they promptly collapsed and ended up losing that game. In 2 league games this season, Krajcek has 1 goal and 2 assists, a total of 3 goal contributions. Despite not playing since then, Krajcek has been involved in half of the total number of goals scored by Hougang – they have only scored 6 goals this season. This is a major problem. If you look at last season’s stats as well, Krajcek has 12 goals and 17 assists from 33 games. That’s almost 1 goal contribution per game. Take that out from the team and attacking-wise, you’re bound to suffer. Defensively, Krajcek also averaged 5.3 tackles and 4.4 interceptions per game. You’re perhaps beginning to see the real influence that Krajcek has on the team now – not just offensively, but defensively. This is why there was an excited flurry of activity near where I was seated in the Geylang v Hougang game when Krajcek went off – as the punters around me started talking about the possibility of having a wager or two on Geylang to come back in the game. Krajcek’s influence is obvious for all to see – he is the one who starts the moves, is in the middle of the moves, and also the one who finishes the moves. Hougang’s acquisition of Shahdan could perhaps have helped alleviate the creative burden on Krajcek’s shoulders, but it is unfortunate that Shahdan himself has also been injured. Shahdan had 5 goals and 6 assists last season for the Sailors, and chipped in with an average of 0.66 key passes per game. This could have been helpful for Hougang, but he is also someone we do not need to contend with tonight. Brian Ferreira Simply put, his output is not good enough. When you watch him, it’s very easy to get frustrated, even as a neutral. 7 matches, no goals, 1 assist. That is not good enough for someone who is tasked with leading the attack or linking midfield to attack. Add to that the shocking stat that he has only made one key pass all season, and his lackadaisical approach to moving to get the ball from his teammates, or win the ball back, and it is no surprise that my friends who are Hougang fans are calling for his head. Regardless of whether he is a foreign player or a local player – the above stats are simply not good enough. But of course, stats don’t always tell the full story, so sometimes the eye test comes into play. The eye test tells me that Brian Ferreira can’t be bothered to get the ball if it involves a full sprint. He is often jogging, or even walking, and that makes it hard for his teammates to get him the ball. Interestingly, the last Hougang match I watched, when they surrendered a 1-0 lead to lose 2-1 to Tanjong Pagar, Brian Ferreira ran a lot more, and had a new determination to his game that I had not seen before in his previous 6 appearances. I am not sure why there has been such a change – it could be tactical, it could be that he was previously dealing with an injury, but whatever it is, hopefully tonight we see the Brian Ferreira of the last 6 games, and not the Brian Ferreira of the Tanjong Pagar game. Shifting the Focus back to Sailors Enough about Hougang United – let’s look at our own Sailors. Doubtlessly, the

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[Post-Match Thoughts] Not Good Enough (Tampines 4 LCS 3)

3 Comments / Post-Match Thoughts / Eddy Hirono

It took a while to write this one because work was busy af. If I am being completely honest with myself, perhaps a part of me just knew that this was gonna be painful to write. To lose this game by 1 goal only felt like a major stroke of luck – and I am not just talking about Glenn Kweh’s exquisitely-taken volley which gave us an undeserved glimmer of hope. Really, what a goal. It reminded me of Robin Snake van Persie’s goal against Charlton all those years ago, just of course, at the wrong end. It was a rare moment of joy in what was otherwise a terrible game to sit through. At no point did I feel that the Sailors deserved to win the game. We played well for 8 minutes, deservedly took the lead with a sublime pass from Maxime Lestienne (of course), and Shawal Anuar got a goal on his first start for the club. After that, it was just terrible to watch. We were so so passive, and although the fans tried their best to keep chanting and keep encouraging the team, I could audibly hear the frustration growing amongst the supporters. I put off looking at the Instat statistics for a long time, because I was afraid of what I would see. But here goes – a stat attack: Out-shot, out-passed, out-fought – the stats confirm what the eyes tell us. I think if I wanted to write all my observations and list all my disappointments, it’d take an eternity, so I will limit myself to two or three main points. I will also highlight some positives – ok I’ll start with this because I’ll be done in a jiffy. So, let’s get the positives out of the way. Nathan Mao Huge positive, this. Earlier this season, Sailors fans were introduced to the talents of 16 year-old Jonan Tan. On Friday night, it was the turn of an even younger prospect – Nathan Mao. Nathan was only 15 years and 5 days old when he made his debut, in the process breaking the record for youngest debutant in the SPL, previously held by Young Lions defender, Raoul Suhaimi (who I am a big fan of). Nathan came on late, and I think most of us thought that this was just a chance for the young lad to get some minutes – and it probably was. I don’t think Coach Risto sent him on thinking that he would make a difference and help us clawback a 2-goal lead. But it didn’t matter to young Nathan, who made the most of his time spent on the pitch. Within seconds, you could tell he wasn’t just gonna see out the minutes meaninglessly and just be a stat. He came on, and made incisive runs to try to get the ball. He was also a prolific “scanner”, immediately checking over his shoulder repeatedly to see where the space was, and where any potential opponents may be. For those who may be less acquainted with “scanning”, or “visual exploratory frequency”, this article may be of help. He managed to win 2 free kicks in his time on the pitch, including the incident where he got crunched by Milos Zlatkovic, who decided not to take any risks, even though the lad was 14 years old barely a week ago. Congrats Milos, you can add child abuse to your CV (just a joke, calm down). A proud moment for the boy and his family I am sure, and it was nice to see that regardless of what happened in the game, the Sailors fans were in full voice welcoming Nathan to the pitch and cheering his every touch. Nathan is one to watch! Anu In a match crying out for some movement, some aggression, it was kinda shocking that it took until the 84th minute for Anu to come on. Even though we never stopped singing for the team, it was clear to us once Faris scored that we were not gonna launch any sort of comeback. Anu’s introduction gave us something to shout about. And when Nathan came on too, suddenly there was movement, and even though we fans never truly believed we would get the equaliser, the heart and the effort made it easier for us to be loud and proud. Fans have a responsibility of lifting the team when they are down, but I truly believe that it’s a two-way process – the players also have to give something for the fans to hold on to, or the fans will lose steam. Anu gave us that. Now let’s move on to the negatives. Hariss Harun Believe me, I hate to do this. As a 35 year-old, I grew up supporting football not old enough to really take in Fandi’s talents, or enjoy watching the whole career of legends such as Nazri Nasir, Rafi Ali, Aide Iskandar, etc. So my hero growing up was Hariss. I have Hariss shirts at home and I think it is clear that he is no longer as mobile as he used to be. Thing about Hariss is that he still is able to affect games with his experience, and his decision-making. His leadership qualities are also held up by many as a reason to continue playing him in the national team and in the Sailors team. As recently as a few weeks back, when we spoke to Hami Syahin, he mentioned how Hariss actually gives a sense of calmness to the players when they defend transitions. Unfortunately, I think the Tampines game is one where he was really shown up. On transitions, it did not look like Hariss knew how to stop Tampines. On more than a few occasions, instead of pressing up to the ball, us fans were disappointed to see Hariss decide to take up a conservative position as he actively jogged away from the ball instead of trying to win it. This resulted in Tampines having a lot

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Author name: Eddy Hirono