Match Previews

I must confess two things first before you read this preview. First, I am typing this barely hours before I fly off to Hanoi and so the research is unlikely to be great. I have not packed either – I am starting to get used to this routine of having to clear as much work as I can before I fly off to support the Sailors in whatever part of the world. My suitcase-packing skills have greatly improved though! Chuck, chuck, chuck, chuck, in and out in 10min. Second, I don’t know a lot about V-League football, besides knowing that Vietnamese players, particularly those who play for the national team, are of a pretty high quality. And with that disclaimer out of the way, let’s talk about why CAHN are probably a good team, but there is no better time to play them. Their Season Just Started Unlike our Sailors, who are thick in the middle of our season, CAHN’s season is barely 3 games old, 1 win in the Shopee Cup, 1 draw and 1 loss in the V-League. While their win against a second-string (but still strong) Buriram United is impressive, they looked very lacklustre in their domestic games. A possible reason for this is that their new signings are still gelling. After all, it takes time for players to settle, and get used to each other. Maxime Lestienne was not an overnight sensation when he joined us – he too, took a while before becoming this absolute machine that he is now. Another possible reason is match fitness – perhaps they really just need a run of games to get going. I am sure you will remember how our own Sailors started this season as well – the articles were very similar. Each article talked about how the Sailors were winning but unconvincing. Perhaps CAHN is going through the same thing too. And then perhaps because of this need to gel, if you take a look at the highlights of their two league games so far, they look far from convincing in defence. Many times the defence is caught flat-footed, and they are just staring at each other, waiting for the other defenders to take action. This is hopefully something we can capitalise on. Not as Many Foreign Players V-League rules dictate that teams can only use up to 3 foreign players and 2 naturalised Vietnamese in domestic games. As such, you see that their squad contains only 4 foreign players. Jason Pendant may look like a foreign name but he has a Vietnamese mother, and when you realise his full name is Jason Pendant Quang Vinh, it starts sounding a lot more Vietnamese, don’t it. To make matters worse for them, Grafite, their hero on Matchday 1 against Buriram sustained an injury and will not be available for this game. So, we have more foreigners than them in our squad, and I think the better foreigners as well, if you just compare CVs. This should help to counter the advantage that CAHN FC has when it comes to the standard of the local players. Vietnam > Singapore is my simplistic analysis of this of course. The Vietnamese Players We are a bit lucky that star defender Doan Van Hau (19 caps for Vietnam) is injured for this one and doesn’t look likely to play. But he’s definitely not the biggest star in the squad. Foreigner or local, it doesn’t matter, the shining star of this team is the Vietnamese Messi, Nguyen Quang Hai. Captain of the team, the little magician has a wand of a left foot, and stands at 1.68m tall, so you can already see why the comparisons to Messi exist. Despite his height, he is a huge figure in Vietnamese football and Vietnam, in general. His recent marriage to Vietnamese influencer Chu Thanh Huyen was widely covered in Vietnam, and only served to boost his celebrity status. His career seems to have not hit the heights that some have predicted in the past. Look at this list of achievements. Superb achievements, but you will notice a distinct lack of accolades after 2021. His career has stalled a little, after his move to Pau FC, a French Ligue 2 side. That spell wasn’t as successful as his fans would have hoped, and he will now be looking to impress after coming back to the V-League. In the games this season, he has shown his creativity and consistent delivery. He already notched one assist, and but for poor finishing from his teammates, could easily have had a couple more. He is certainly the dangerman and we would do well to stop service to him, and from him. Rest and Rotation Having seen our lineup in the last game against Balestier Khalsa, it is pretty clear that Coach Ranko treats the Shopee Cup seriously, and is preserving the likes of Maxime Lestienne, Lennart Thy and Bart Ramselaar for this game. This might work to our advantage as well, because CAHN FC had to grind hard over the weekend with their first team, and still ended up losing to Thanh Hoa FC. The legs might just be feeling a little heavy heading into this one. Conclusion The official preview written by the club is fantastic, and I highly recommend checking it out. We are abit pampered in that the club really puts in effort to deliver such quality content, so we should definitely appreciate that. The preview does talk a lot about CAHN coach Mano Polking perhaps having a lot of knowledge about the Singaporean players due to his long stint as coach for the Thailand national team. While that may be true, I am optimistic still, considering all the reasons above. Let’s just not play like how we did in Borneo please. COME ON YOU BOYS IN BLUE! My predicted line-up Izwan Mahbud Hafiz Nor, Lionel Tan, Bailey Wright, Toni Datkovic, Obren Kljajic Hariss Harun, Hami Syahin Maxime Lestienne, Lennart Thy, Bart Ramselaar Score Prediction

After a hard-fought 2-0 victory on Thursday, rotation is gonna be the name of the game this weekend as we take on Balestier Khalsa, one of the most entertaining sides in the league. They are in 4th place, and come into this game unbeaten in 6, winning and drawing 3 each. On paper this is a going to be a difficult game, so let’s dive straight into some pre-match thoughts. Attacking Prowess It is no secret that Balestier don’t really have trouble scoring goals. With 46 goals scored, they have the 3rd-best offensive record in the league, second only to Geylang’s 52 and Sailors’ 49. Kodai Tanaka leads the way for them with 15 goals, but as you can probably tell, the goals are well spread out. Ismail Sassi has 12 goals, Ignatius Ang has 5, Riku Fukashiro has 4, and Alen Kozar has 4. This is a team that has multiple routes to goal, unlike Geylang, where if you stop Tomoyuki Doi, you probably shut them down entirely. This difference with Geylang is especially stark when you consider that in the last few games, Kodai Tanaka has struggled to find the net. In the last 3 games where Balestier have plundered a total of 12 goals, Kodai does not have a single goal to his name. However, in those games, he has 4 assists, and has been part of a free-flowing attack. I am sure he wants to be back on the scoresheet soon, but till that happens, at least he will feel like he’s contributing. His 4 assists takes his season total to 8 assists, which is very impressive considering he is the striker and is expected to bang in the goals. If you watch Balestier games you will notice also that even though he is the main striker, he has no qualms dropping out to the wings in order to receive the passes and help to stretch the play, and eventually cross the ball in. This shows he’s truly a team player and is willing to do whatever is necessary for the team to win. We would do well not to over-commit to merely take care of Kodai. He is well capable of creating for his teammates too. No Madhu, Welcome Back Tajeli In the previous match against DPMM, Madhu rather harshly saw red for an elbow to the DPMM opponent’s face. Bad news for him, but great news for us. Not only is Madhu an integral part of their defence, he also has scored once and assisted 5 times this season. For context, Alen Kozar has 4, and Riku Fukashiro has 6, so he is right smack in between. He also has that ability to put shivers down the spines of many a supporter whenever he lines up for a long throw. Tajeli is eligible to play this game because he has already served out his suspension for a violent attack on an opponent two months ago. Will he come straight in? Will Coach de Roo continue to punish him for his ill behaviour? Whatever it is and whoever it is that starts in the middle, the defence will not be as good as it was before, and we have to capitalise on this unfamiliarity. How to Rotate? I am sure right now, Anu will be kicking himself, wondering why he got himself sent off so unnecessarily last week. Maybe it’s the curse of Jurong East – bad things always happen to Anu there. As it stands, he is not available for us for a number of games, and it is a crucial absence particularly because Rui Pires also seems to have a hand injury. He was spotted at JBS having his hand wrapped up in a bandage of sorts, and while it doesnt’ look too serious, the fact that he didn’t play any part in the wiin against Zhejiang, and the quick turnaround makes us wonder about his injury status going into this game. That leaves Hariss and Hami in the middle, because Adam Swandi is also going through some health scare of his own. We are not privy to information about the players the way that the coaching staff do, so we can only guess that it might be too soon for Adam Swandi to help out also. Of course, there is soome worry. Should Hariss or Hami be overplayed, then they might put themselves at risk of injury, and we really cannot afford to lose any midfielders. Conclusion A short one today because of the rushed schedule – SailorFanTalk needs squad rotation too haha. An important game in a packed schedule for us – the one thing I would say about our opponents is they don’t like to sit back and hold everyone behind the ball, so perhaps we will have space to thrive on in the counter-attack. That may lead to goals for us. Hopefully it plays out that way. COME ON YOU BOYS IN BLUE! My predicted line-up Izwan Mahbud Lionel Tan, Bailey Wright, Toni Datkovic, Obren Kljajic Rui Pires, Bart Ramselaar, Hami Syahin Abdul Rasaq, Shawal Anuar, Song Ui-Young Score Prediction Joseph and I predict the scores and track our success in a table. Stay tuned to find out who is the prediction king! 3 points for exact scoreline predicted correctly, 2 points for predicting the winner and margin of victory correctly (but not the exact scoreline), and 1 point for predicting the outcome correctly (win, lose or draw). Eddy’s prediction: Sailors 3 Balestier Khalsa 1 Joseph’s prediction: Sailors 2 Balestier Khalsa 0 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!

I take a bit of a backseat this time as Joseph Chin (not to be mistaken with Joseph Jireh) very helpfully did all of the heavy lifting for this article, and I am very grateful. I present to you his lowdown on Zhejiang Professional, and will then add on some of my thoughts and predictions at the end. The Lowdown on Zhejiang Professional The Name What’s up with that name? Zhejiang Professional? Why does it sound so technical and boring? No exciting explanation, really. They were actually made to rename (via government decree) from Hangzhou Greentown, hence the bland and rather unwieldy name Zhejiang Professional. You’ll notice that Guangzhou Evergrande is also not Guangzhou Evergrande anymore, they are just Guangzhou FC. Government did not want football clubs to have corporate names in their name. Greentown is not a place, it is a company’s name. They are property developers, and remain owners of the club despite significant budget cuts. The History They were a yoyo-team whose 4th placed finish in 2010 remains a rare highlight of a generally mediocre track record until Jordi Vinyals, their current manager, took over. Former players include Asian Pedigree First appearing in 2011 ACL, Nagoya Grampus lost there to Hangzhou but their poor away form in Japan, Korea (against FC Seoul) and UAE (Al Ain) meant they ended in 4th place. The next time they returned to the ACL was in 2023, after being relegated from CSL in 2016 and exiled there until 2022. The underdogs punched above their weight with home wins against Buriram United (that ended in an infamous brawl, more on that later) and Ventforet Kofu. Yet again their indifferent away form proved to be their undoing, though a creditable draw against Melbourne City was the reason why the Aussies couldn’t reach the next round. The Man at the Helm Jordi Vinyals. He is a former Barcelona B player, who also spent time with (then) lower division clubs Real Betis and Villarreal. Bounced around in the lower leagues in Spain as a manager until making his name in China with the now-defunct Qingdao Huanghai and then Zhejiang. At least in China, his teams’ nearly 60% win rate in Qingdao and Hangzhou are based on a tendency to score a lot of goals and do things with a solid rather than spectacular squad with limited resources. Some Dangermen to Look Out for Leonardo: Thankfully he is not around to wreak havoc on our defence. The brawl against Buriram saw one of the main instigators of the fight hit with an 8-match ban, which means he can only be used domestically for this season. For the same reason, Yao Junsheng and Dong Yu are banned for the first few matches of ACL2 this season. Leonardo has 18 goals and 4 assists this season for Zhejiang, and is far and away their top-scorer. Franko Andrijasevic: 3 caps for Croatia, will be pulling strings in the middle of the park together / alternating with Cheng Jin (whose appearance with the PRC NT last week was restricted to the bench) Jean Evrard Kouassi: 9 caps for Ivory Coast, was on the longlist for the AFCON in 2023. Impressed with Hajduk Split and CSL rivals Shanghai Port and Wuhan Zall. Also had a forgettable dry spell in Turkey. Versatile across the frontline, one of the few world class players in the team and the main attacking threat. While he only has 5 goals this season, he leads the teams in assists, and is their biggest threat. Alexander N’doumbou: AKA Qian Jiegei, the half-Chinese Gabonese midfielder once represented Gabon for 14 matches. Having renounced it for Chinese citizenship, he is out of international football but remains a key cog in his China career with Shanghai Shenhua and then Zhejiang given his European credentials. Deabeas Owusu: Former Ajax youth player whose unusual route to China (via Estonia) helped somehow to revive a flagging career at 24 years old. Have to fill the big shoes of the suspended Leonardo and the prolific Zimbabwean striker Nyasha Mushkewi (who has left the club). And that’s the Lowdown by Joseph Chin! Sailors Need to Improve After that pretty detailed breakdown by Joseph of our opponents tomorrow, I’ll now give you some of my thoughts. I think this goes without saying, but we must do better than we did against Borneo. Till today I am not sure what that performance was – was it tactics? Tiredness? Bit of both? We looked so passive, and so out of ideas, and we couldn’t string any passes together. It was a genuinely worrying performance, even taking the poorness of the pitch into account. There was a bit of a break after the 2-2 draw against Geylang International some weeks back, and I think and hope that the staff had time to figure out what the problem was. Whether it’s been solved, we don’t know because we put out a very different lineup against Tanjong Pagar United. Coach Rankovic admitted after the game that it was due to rotation, so I don’t think any of us should expect to see the same lineup come tomorrow evening. As always, the proof is in the pudding, so let us all be judges of whether any improvement has been made. I hope that especially at home, we see our team go for it a bit more, and not be so tentative in attack. Maxime had some big words to say in the official club interview, let’s hope the team backs it up with some good play on the pitch. Zhejiang Not In the Best Shape It won’t have escaped notice that even though some might say that recent Sailors form has been unconvincing, Zhejiang’s is even worse. They have lost more than half their games, have a negative goal difference, and their 50 goals conceded is the 2nd-worst defensive record in the entire league. Their form in the past 2 mths? 4 losses, 1 draw, and 1 win. If there’s ever an

That’s a sad title, isn’t it? Amazingly, despite missing our chance to go top last week, tonight presents another chance for our Sailors to do so. For that to happen, we’ll need to beat Geylang, and hope that somehow Tampines fails to take all three points when they face Hougang. The latter is highly unlikely, despite Hougang’s recent resurgence in form, but depressingly, I am going to predict that our Sailors won’t be able to pick up all three points against Geylang anyway. Let’s dive right into the preview. Lack of Rotation Costing Us Rotation is a word I have mentioned quite a few times this season in preview articles. Why I have been banging that drum repeatedly is because I feared that the fixture congestion coming up would lead to tired performances and worse, injuries. Of the 12 games played in the league so far, all 12 have seen Maxime Lestienne starting. I know he’s our biggest star, and he leads the Sailors both in goals and assists, but surely we can’t keep playing him and still expect his performances to be top-notch week in week out? To make things worse, sometimes we find ourselves in a comfortable lead, and still persist in leaving him on the pitch – as we did for the entirety of the 7-1 thrashing of Hougang. Can we not trust our bench options earlier on in games when we are already comfortably leading? Can we consider leaving him out of the team if we’re playing Tanjong Pagar for example? What does it say about us if we cannot be confident of beating Tanjong Pagar without Maxime in the side? Questions for us to think about. To make matters worse, not trusting your bench players also then means that when they do need to step up and contribute, they lack rhythm. When Anu and Adam Swandi come on nowadays, I don’t feel they are anything like what I remember of them as players. Is it a physical issue? Mental issue? Frankly I don’t know. Moving forward, I hope Coach Ranko balances out the workload a little more. I shudder to think what will happen to our team should Maxime sustain a bad injury. Touchwood. All of you reading this please touch wood as well. Datkovic Injury Datkovic is a tough guy – and so for him to lie on the ground wincing in pain after a collision with Hassan Sunny must have meant he was in a lot of pain. There is talk about the injury being a fractured rib, while some others say it’s a bruised rib. If it’s a fracture, then he’ll be out for at least a month. Fingers crossed. It’s a real shame because I feel he has settled into the team really well. He is assured in defence, useful in build-up, and also a penalty-box threat at the other end during setpieces. He is also the only left-footed centre-back option that we have, so this is a big blow to us, because it has an effect on how we play out from the back. The Toni-Bailey partnership has been an integral part of the defence that has conceded the second-least number of goals in the SPL this season. Toni’s injury means we will likely see a partnership that is largely untested, Bailey + Lionel, or Bailey + Hariss. This thus has further knock-on effects as to the midfield options that we have. All in all, a big blow to have Toni out for so long. Bailey was also left out of the squad for the loss to Albirex, with sources stating he suffered a concussion during the Borneo game. Fingers crossed he can make it back for this game – we’ll need all the bodies we can get. Geylang Always Give Us a Tough Time I was a little surprised when I checked the head-to-head results between Geylang and the Sailors in the past few meetings. I was expecting to see Geylang taking points off us left right and centre, but surprisingly we actually won all 3 games against Geylang in 2023, and the only bad result was the 1-1 draw earlier this season. Of course, there’s a reason for why I had that impression, and I suspect some other Sailors fans will have that impression too. First, it’s because we remember 2022 all too well, when we faced Geylang 4 times, and only managed 1 win. Even leaving aside the results, Noor Ali has set his side up well against us in the past few years, so much so that even if we do win, it isn’t exactly convincing. I am sure you will remember the 2-1 win over them when we needed a pair of Lestienne freekicks to bail us out – we were completely impotent in attack that day, and defensively we had to rely on a Mamat masterclass to stop Geylang from increasing their lead. This season’s game also saw Geylang completely grab hold of the impetus in the first half, and they scored after Bezecourt capitalised on a Hariss error. They do very well to stop us playing out of the back and building in any meaningful fashion, so we can expect more of the same this time. Tomoyuki Doi The man’s a machine. Even when Geylang are playing like crap, he scores. He’s now on 20 goals for the season, and to put things into context, that’s about half of Geylang’s goals (45), and more than the numbers of goals scored by Tanjong Pagar (15), DPMM (19). It is also equal to the number of goals scored by Young Lions and Hougang United, while only one less than that scored by Albirex (21). It is just insane. And he takes them from everywhere too. While he is a potent penalty-box finisher, 5 of his 20 goals were taken from outside the box as well, meaning you can’t just sit off him as well. With the Sailors defence in flux – I am not

It was 7-1 last time out against the White Swans as they meekly surrendered in that game. A combination of poor form and terribly naive tactics by King Kazu meant that our Sailors managed to hit them on transitions again and again and again. And again. It was terribly cathartic for Sailors fans, considering all the damage they have done to us over the years. Watch the highlights here again if you so wish. Are we likely to do a repeat of it? I don’t think so. More Pragmatic Albirex Since King Kazu got the sack, I think the truth finally dawned on Albirex that this season’s team was not very good. Not only was it not a championship-contending team, it is actually a team that would struggle to survive relegation (if there was such a concept in the SPL). They’ve since amended their style to be a lot more pragmatic, staying solid and compact and trying to hit teams on the counter with the pace of Daniel Goh and Shingo Nakano. Their last result was a 0-0 draw, the first time in 2 years that a goalless draw has been seen in the SPL. They managed to limit the effervescent attacking trio of DPMM, something that Geylang International failed to do earlier this evening. A part of this was perhaps due to the return of veteran midfielder Yojiro Takahagi, who managed to exert some control in midfield. This, coupled with Syed Firdaus Hassan’s return to midfield meant that Albirex were harder to break down than they usually are this season. Nakano – One to Fear When I first heard that Albirex were signing a kid who played college football in the USA, I thought to myself, wow how desperate could they be? But credit to them, what a masterstroke it has turned out to be. With raw energy, pace and athleticism, he has really proven to be the difference for Albirex. Since the Sailors game, he has struck 6 times in 7 games. He has 8 goals and 1 assist this season, making it 0.9 goals per game. For reference, Maxime is on 0.84, Shawal is on 0.89 and Lennart is on 0.69. Of his goals, he has also shown he is rather versatile – scoring with left foot, right foot, and his head. The last time we played him, he hadn’t fully settled in yet (though the same can be said of Lennart Thy who was still being criticised by some fans despite us racking up 7 goals). If we can stop the supply to Nakano, we can probably keep Albirex quiet tomorrow evening. Will Sailors Bounce Back with a Strong Side? Or Will they Rotate? A 3-0 loss to Borneo FC has gotta be slightly demoralising. And when you lose, your legs feel that bit heavier. You can play games every 3 days and if you’re winning each one comfortably, you might still feel that spring in your step. Does Coach Ranko rotate for this one, given that Albirex are one of the weaker teams in the SPL, and giving some key players a chance to get their legs back before the Geylang game on Friday? I think he won’t make wholesale changes, but I believe some regulars will come in. Shawal and Hariss I can see them starting given that they didn’t start in midweek. Rui Pires, given his early sending-off, should probably start as well. Should Obren be available, then the foreigner quota comes into the equation again. Does Coach Ranko drop one of our two foreign centre-backs to allow Obren to play? Conclusion Whatever lineup is put out, we absolutely have to beat this season’s version of Albirex. Let’s put the midweek disappointment behind us and go top of the table (Tampines don’t play this weekend). COME ON YOU BOYS IN BLUE! My predicted line-up Izwan Mahbud Lionel Tan, Bailey Wright, Toni Datkovic, Chris van Huizen Rui Pires, Adam Swandi, Hariss Harun Maxime Lestienne, Lennart Thy, Shawal Anuar Score Prediction Joseph and I predict the scores and track our success in a table. Stay tuned to find out who is the prediction king! 3 points for exact scoreline predicted correctly, 2 points for predicting the winner and margin of victory correctly (but not the exact scoreline), and 1 point for predicting the outcome correctly (win, lose or draw). Eddy’s prediction: Albirex 1 Sailors 3 Joseph’s prediction: Albirex 0 Sailors 3 Written by Eddy Hirono Picture courtesy of Lion City Sailors 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!

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