Author name: Eddy Hirono

The last time we played these opponents, it was the late, late show, with Shawal’s acrobatic goal giving us the lead only in the 86th minute of the game. Maxime Lestienne then added on some gloss with a truly fantastic curler from the edge of the box to seal the points. It was an unconvincing result, but performance-wise, we absolutely battered DPMM and it was only the heroics from Naumovski and some wasteful finishing which prevented us from scoring even more. In this preview, I talk about how I believe our Sailors are primed to get yet another big scoreline. Let’s dive right into it. Set-Pieces (Yes, Again) By now you must be kinda bored of hearing this – but yes, our opponents are spectacularly bad at defending from set-pieces. They’ve conceded 7 goals from set-pieces this season, despite playing one game fewer than the most of the league. This is second-highest in the league, with the highest being Hougang, the team we vanquished at the weekend. One-third of the goals conceded by DPMM are from set-pieces. Part of the explanation for this is the same as Hougang’s – just simply a lack of quality at centreback. Since Flottmann’s injury for DPMM, they have not looked the same side, and it is no wonder that they have already dipped into the market to search for new foreigners. They’ve signed a few already if transfermrkt.com is to be believed, but will have to wait for the transfer window to open before they can register anyone. But those with a good memory will remember that Naumovski turned in a great performance against us the last time out, and is one of the more reliable keepers in the league. So surely he compensates a little for his centre-backs not being the most dominant? Yes and no. While Naumovski has proven to be capable in the air, if we take a look at the 5 goals our centre-backs Bailey and Toni have got from corner kicks, you will realise that all of them were outswingers. 4 were delivered by Lestienne’s left foot, while the other was delivered by the right foot of Adam Swandi. What this does is that it negates his prowess in the air, because outswingers curl away from the keeper, and it is very unlikely that a keeper will come out for those unless it’s very poorly-placed, or it is a very slow ball. Once again, you heard it here first – we’re gonna score from a setpiece. DPMM are a Lucky Team with a Good Goalkeeper I’ve already talked about Naumovski a little in the previous section – let’s talk about him a little more. DPMM has the 3rd-best defensive record in the league, with 21 goals conceded. Sailors and Tampines have each conceded 12, while Geylang have conceded 22. The rest of the league is in the region of 30. However, if you take a look at xG allowed to their opponents, DPMM are actually near the bottom – only Young Lions and Albirex (of course) are worse. Now, of course, many factors play into this. Quality of goalkeeper is one. If you give up tons of good chances, but your goalkeeper is class, then you’re gonna rack up a big xG allowed, but not actually concede goals. Other factors, such as wasteful finishing, and luck also come into the picture. In the reverse fixture, the lingering memory is that DPMM did well to shut us out till the end, but in reality, it was a mixture of good goalkeeping and bad finishing. Take a look at the stats (DPMM in green, Sailors in blue). You can almost guarantee if we create the same kind of chances in such a dominant display tomorrow, the scoreline will be very different. Cruz Control Despite starting the season late and missing the last two games with an injury, Julio Cruz remains DPMM’s joint-highest scorer with 4 goals. He also has 3 assists under his belt. That’s 7 goal contributions in the 6 games he has played, which while not Maxime levels (21 goal contributions in 10 games), is still very presentable. I like him a lot because of his strength, skills and also his ability to use both feet. He almost scored against Zharfan in the last game with a 35-yard piledriver. The official SPL site preview lists him as possibly making a comeback from injury, and whether he makes it not will be a crucial factor in determining whether we walk out of this match with a clean sheet. He is DPMM’s focal point in attack, and he has a real poacher’s instinct, scoring his 4 goals from only 2.54 xG. Let’s hope he can’t make it back in time. Or maybe just maybe, he’s not out injured, and he just had a falling-out or something with his coach? I am just speculating of course, but it does seem strange that DPMM would go out and sign a 31-year-old Spanish striker (Sergio Mendigutxia) unless someone in their frontline is leaving. It’s ParThy Time Please excuse me for that terrible pun. Jokes aside – Lennart Thy has been playing well, playing selflessly for the team, and contributing to wins. However, there hasn’t been a game yet where he forces everyone to take notice of him. I think that time has come. He looked a relieved man with his 2 goals last week, and that may be all he needs against a weak backline. For context, Brunei’s national team is ranked 190th in the world, while Singapore’s is 160th. Without a foreign centreback, Lennart Thy is essentially going up against an all-Bruneian backline. He will have no better chance to plunder them for goals. Hafiz Nor Last but not least, Hafiz Nor hit his 100th appearance for the Sailors recently, and will be presented with a special commemorative gift by the club tomorrow. The presentation will take place after the pre-match warmup so be there early to applaud this legend of the

Sometimes I feel very tempted to write a preview which just says “How can Sailors possibly not win this game?” This is one of those games. But you guys pay good money to read these previews, so I feel obliged to write something anyway. Wait, what, SailorFanTalk articles are free? You gotta be kidding me. Into the preview we go. Hougang are the Lowest Scorers in the League Yes. 12 goals. Even lower than Albirex. Who scored 7 of their 14 goals in one game, and the other 7 goals took them eight games to achieve. Even lower than Tanjong Pagar United and Young Lions, both with 13. They are a team that do not commit numbers into attack, and are happy soaking up the pressure before trying to break quickly to score. However, due to the aforementioned reluctance to push people into attack, they struggle to get goals. Their brightest attacking threats are Dejan Racic, Stjepan Plazonja, and Hazzuwan Halim. Together, they have only 9 goals in total, which is just 1 goal more than Maxime Lestienne has achieved this season. On paper, they should pose little threat to us. However, one thing to look out for would be Shahdan Sulaiman slowly coming back into form. He suffered a horrific injury that deprived Hougang of him for almost the entire 2023 season, but is beginning to form a useful partnership in the middle of the park with Shodai Yokoyama. Shahdan also poses a threat on setpieces, so we would do well not to give up silly freekicks and corners. Hougang have not scored from and indirect freekick or corner yet this season, but with Shahdan’s delivery, and some tall players, there’s always a possibility. Hougang’s Defence – Not Great Aside from conceding 23 goals in 9 games, Hougang also concede the second-most from set pieces. They have conceded 6 times this season, second only to DPMM, who have conceded 7 times from set pieces. They have a shocking inability to mark their opponents in the box, and evidence of this can be seen from their game against Tampines where Irfan Najeeb was basically unchallenged for both of his headed goals. More recently, they allowed Jun Kobayashi to score off a simple near-post corner routine. With Toni Datkovic and Bailey Wright in our team, this is surely somewhere we can take advantage. Bailey Wright told his neighbour that he is gonna score 10 goals this season, and he has already scored twice, so 8 more to go! Bailey’s gonna score again this Sunday – you heard it here first! Hougang Have a Lack of Depth Take a look at this lineup in their last game. Besides Gabriel Quak and Ajay Robson, who can they really bring on to change the game? I mean, three of those substitutes are goalkeepers, which should go to show how poor their depth is. In case you missed the news, Kiki Krajcek has been deregistered for him to seek treatment for a long-standing injury in his own country. Should things not be going well for Hougang, they genuinelly lack options to help them switch things up. Hougang’s Poor Form Hougang picked up a win last time out, courtesy of a beautiful left-footed drive by Plazonja that beat Hassan Sunny. It was their first win in 12 games, a run that stretched back to last season. But it’s Albirex. I think Albirex is in such poor form now that you could send out 11 scarecrows, strap on football boots and kits on them, and there’d be a 50-50 chance of Scarecrows FC winning. Not much more to add here – I’ve been trying to see if Hougang has shown anything in their play so far to make me fear a little that we will drop points. So far, nothing. Maybe the pitch…? Bad Pitch Condition The Bishan Stadium pitch has seen better times. It is now bald in some spots, and divots are starting to appear across the pitch. In fact, one of the divots caused Kodai Tanaka to sky a penalty in his last game. Why do I raise this? It feels like I am really clutuching at straws to see how any other factor might help Hougang against us. The bad pitch could potentially work in their favour because they tend to play more football in the air, while we like to pass it around a bit more. This coupled with Marko Kraljevic’s history of utilising Toa Payoh Stadium’s potato patch of a pitch to his team’s advantage in the past, could maybe give us some cause for concern. Sailors Availability Turning our focus to our own Sailors, I guess the big question is whether Izwan will retain his place. This weekend’s starting lineup will tell us whether dropping Zharfan was a one-off to take him out of the firing line a little after his blunder against Tampines, or whether dropping him was permanent – i.e. it’s Izwan’s spot to lose now. I am quite sure it’s the latter. We might also wonder if Bart Ramselaar is back in contention. He got injured exactly 2 weeks ago, and from experience, hamstring injuries tend to take 2-3 weeks to heal. If there is still any tightness at all, I would hope the club does the wise thing and continues to rest him. While bringing Bart on against Balestier made sense because they are a good opponent and we needed someone to give us more attacking impetus, I think we should already have too much firepower for Hougang. Keeping Bart out of the squad would also allow Rui Pires to start yet another game, which would be good for him to build up match fitness and confidence. Obren Kljajic and Abdul Rasaq have also been seen back in training – but sometimes I do wonder if the club’s media team purposely puts such training pictures out to try and confuse and mislead opposition coaches a little. Adam Swandi has been missing from the last 2

Prior to the Tampines game, the Sailors were spoken about by most people as shoo-ins for the title, with Tampines and Geylang perhaps able to put up tough fights, but ultimately falling short as the Sailors machine kicks into gear with better depth at its disposal, and overall just better quality. One humiliating result later, suddenly the Sailors are a club in crisis, there are calls for Rankovic to be sacked, and everything is called into question. Such is the nature of sports nowadays – it is a results industry. When you lose 5-0 to a title rival to record your club’s biggest-ever margin of defeat, and fail to force the opposing goalkeeper into making a save, the negative noise really builds. Sailors fans start lashing out at individuals, such as Zharfan (who made a horrendous error for the 2nd goal, but was otherwise blameless for the rest of the goals), such as Hariss (someone who is relied upon coach after coach, but yet finds himself having to prove his worth over and over again) – but forget that it was a team failure. Who on that pitch actually came off with any credit? Tampines fans by and large are fine – but you will see a few crawling out of the gutter now and again. You see them on LCS’s IG posts, on SFT’s various social media posts. Gloating and laughing. Money can’t buy history, they say. I say to them I wish money could buy manners, because obviously they lack the class and grace to behave in a befitting manner. Don’t be a sore loser, but don’t be an ungracious winner as well. As much as we hate the negative noise, I am sure the players hate it too. They probably hate it more. A win tonight will not kill all the negative noise. We could win 22-0 with each member of the squad getting a goal at least, and get 98% possession, and people will say “Ah it’s just Young Lions” – but fail to win, and you can be sure the negative noise will reach 400 decibels. So are we gonna win? Let’s dive right into the preview. More Fighting Spirit Whatever happens tonight, the Sailors fans will want to see more fighting spirit. Against Tampines, while noone said it aloud, we were all waiting for something to spark the fans into life. Yes, the Crew and some members of the crowd were chanting – but we needed something to unite everyone. A moment of controversy, a blood-and-thunder tackle – just something for the fans to hold on to, to believe that the team out there is fighting for us. When Shah Shahiran, Yasir Hanapi and Irfan Najeeb are passing circles around you when the score is 5-0, I think the fans wouldn’t have minded if one of our players went ahead and barged a Tampines player to the floor. Yellow card? No worries. At least show you are not a training cone. It was interesting that in a post-match interview, Ranko said one of the positives was that noone got a red card. I find it interesting because that’s not a normal comment a coach makes, but also because it reveals that Ranko thought some of our players might be so frustrated that they take it out on the Tampines players. I think there’s a middle ground – you don’t have to go in and try to maim someone and get a red card, but you can absolutely be a bit more physical to show you are not ready to be messed around with, Zlatkovic did it to Nathan Mao last year, and even in last weekend’s game, Boris’s dirty challenge was meant to do exactly that – to intimidate, to distract, to assert dominance. Against the Young Lions, there may be times when the chips are down – and when that happens, I hope to see a more fighting response this time. Let’s show people that Sailors are not just about quality players, it is also about players who fight for the badge, and are willing to eliminate any obstacles in our way. Young Lions a Threat from Set Pieces With a total of 5 goals from set pieces, Young Lions are joint-top of this stat with Balestier Khalsa. However, given that Balestier Khalsa also score many more goals, a greater percentage of Young Lions goals comes from set pieces – a whopping 38%. Kaisei Ogawa is usually the architect of this success, and has 4 assists under his belt this season. Set pieces is something Joseph spoke passionately about in the aftermath of the 5-0 defeat to Tampines. I think while set-piece goals are inevitable and every team does concede them, it is the manner which really got Joseph annoyed. Irfan Najeeb was unchallenged as he headed the ball in from Faris’s corner. That came minutes after Boris Kopitovic was also unmarked with yards of space to fire home from Glenn Kweh’s cutback. Our marking will definitely have to be better if we are to get a clean sheet tonight – the Young Lions clearly work on their setpieces. Enomoto the Dangerman with Farhan Zulkifli the Wildcard Enomoto is their top-scorer with 6 goals. In the previous preview, I marked him out as someone who came with a reputation for being good in the air (in aerial duels). He has since proven to be quite useful there, especially in providing the Young Lions with a long-ball option should they need it. He has also scored once with his head this season. I like his movement a lot, and he is a major reason why Young Lions are looking competitive in all the matches they have played in this year. The other one to look out for is of course, the livewire Farhan Zulkifli. He hasn’t completed the full 90 a lot this season, and on a few occasions started from the bench. Not sure why that would be considering that I think

Our Sailors take on Tampines in a top-of-the-table battle between two clubs that have had very very similar starts to the season. We’re both on the same number of points, have scored the same number of goals, and have the best and second-best defensive records in the league. Truly neck and neck stuff out there. Have you ever wondered why when two teams are close, they are described as being “neck and neck“? I wondered if it had its origins in athletics, where two runners would be close to each other – but that would be strange, why would their necks be near each other? So I did some digging, and it turns out that the phrase has its origins in horse racing, where two horses in competition give off the appearance that their necks are side by side. Ok TIL. Let’s gallop right into the preview. The Two Best Defences in the League That the Sailors and Tampines have such good defensive records is not by chance or sheer dumb luck. If you wonder whether it’s both sides’ respective keepers bailing them out, it’s not that either. Both teams simply concede very few shots to begin with. The Sailors (9.9) and Tampines (9.6) are the only two teams to concede an average number of shots lesser than 10 every game. For context, the next closest is Hougang with 12.0 shots per game conceded, and then Geylang with 13.1 shots conceded per game. Some of it is down to the quality of the defenders themselves. Milos Zlatkovic and Shuya Yamashita are amongst the most solid centrebacks in the league, while I don’t think anyone can disagree with the contention that Bailey Wright and Toni Datkovic is the meanest central defensive pairing in the league this season. However, some of it is also due to how “boring” both teams are. I say this with a lot of love for our Sailors of course, and with some admiration for our rivals in black and yellow. Both teams are the best in the league at controlling games. Part of this is due to the individual quality up front. When you have top-quality attackers, you do not need to throw too many men forward to create numerical overlaps. Take a look at LCS’s fullbacks for example. Lionel Tan tucks in to form a back three when he starts at right-back, while Obren Kljajic is given more licence to roam down the left. However, you seldom see Obren pop into the box to create chances or even go all the way to the byline. Part of that may be down to him shifting the primary responsibility of creating to his more esteemed teammates like Bart, Shawal and Maxime, but part of it also is that he doesn’t make penetrative runs all the time – he picks and chooses his moments. You compare that with Geylang, where routinely, you will see players like Shakir Hamzah, Naqiuddin Eunos given free rein down the left and right flanks – which undoubtedly leaves gaps behind when they get hit on the counter. While I would also like our Sailors to be more attacking – I realise how far our defence has come. There was a time (exactly one year ago), where I was bemoaning this stat. Being top of the table for most stats is good. Zharfan may take some pride in being the keeper with the most saves in July last year, but it means that the rest of the team is not doing a great job protecting the keeper. Just look last year at where Syazwan Buhari (41 saves) and Hassan Sunny (31 saves) are. Related point – Onana had the most saves of all goalkeepers in the English Premier League last season too. All that being said, I guess my point is this – we are conservative and it is paying off in terms of results. We are unbeaten, and have been unbeaten in our last 12 matches. Tampines are too, and have their own unbeaten run to protect. Their Dangermen No prizes for guessing who their two dangermen are. Seia Kunori has made a great start to life at Rovers, while Boris Kopitovic keeps up his impressive penalty-scoring record. Congratulations to Boris for scoring goals no. 100 and 101 for the Rovers over the weekend. I am kinda glad he achieved it against DPMM so we don’t have to see it happen against us. I am also reliably informed that out of the 101 goals he has scored for them, 98 were from the penalty spot, while the remaining 3 goals were tap-ins from 2 yards out. I kid, I kid. It’s a great achievement and we’d do well to shackle him properly. This season, he has scored 8 goals, and at least 1 in each of his 7 appearances. All 8 goals have been scored in the penalty area, showing his prowess in the area. 3 of his 8 goals have come via the penalty spot. He has also picked up 2 assists to boot. 10 goal contributions in 7 games – that is elite territory. I mean, Maxime has 13 in 7 games, but Maxime is far and away the best player in the league. Inside the box, if we give Boris a sniff, we’re screwed. Then we move on to Seia Kunori. Seia is a more well-rounded threat than Boris – and is also one who doesn’t really stick to a certain position. This season, we’ve seen him pop up wide left, wide right, behind the striker, in the striker position. He will be hard to keep tabs on because of his constant movement, and his ability to use both feet. Of his 5 goals scored this season, 3 have come via his left foot, while 2 have come via his right. What is also quite worrying for us is that if we retreat into our box to defend, he has the ability to hurt us from range as well. 3