Post-Match Thoughts

When you have a potential banana peel of a game, the two things you want most are your opponents not turning up for the fight, and your opponents handing you gifts. Both happened in the first half of the game against Balestier Khalsa, and so despite rotating half the team, we managed to navigate this difficult fixture. The Spill There seemed to be little on when a routine cross was played into the box by Carmona. The cross had too much height and too little pace – so Hafiz Ahmad had all the time in the world to come out and gather it. However, maybe Shawal Anuar knows something we don’t. If you watch the replay, he is looking at the ball the entire time, and almost half-expecting the keeper to spill it. In fact, what is most impressive about the goal is that when Hafiz Ahmad spills it, Shawal Anuar receives the ball and controls it even before it hits the floor. It looked like one fluid motion for him to control the spilled ball, put it in front of him in his stride, and then cut it back for a gleeful Abdul Rasaq who can’t quite believe his luck I think. Regardless of how it was scored, this was a gift, and Hafiz Ahmad immediately put his hand up to apologise to his team. The gifts didn’t stop though. The Defence Was Out of Sorts Even before Chris van Huizen tucked the ball into an empty net from outside the box, Balestier Khalsa already looked out of sorts in defence. Not to overstate the importance of one player, but perhaps this is where the experience of Madhu was sorely missed. Take a look at this situation for example. Hami picks up the ball in midfield, and that is possibly the worst-looking defensive line you’ll see. Basic football 101 – if there is no pressure on the ball-passer, the defensive line must drop back to deal with a potential through pass. In this moment, Jordan Emaviwe is distracted by Abdul Rasaq trying to fend him off and doesn’t call his defenders back. Haiqal Pashia (left wing) is completely free and there is an easy pass to be played to him. To make matters worse, Shawal Anuar (right wing) is on his bike and ready to go, but Masahiro Sugita doesn’t realise it. 2 seconds later, Shawal Anuar is now in acres of space, and having had the run on Masahiro Sugita, in a great position to score. We all know what happened next. Somehow, from this position, Shawal didn’t capitalise. He tried a dink over the keeper and got it badly wrong. If I could have one criticism of how this situation was handled, I feel Haiqal Pashia should perhaps have continued his run at full pace, to ensure that not only does Shawal have an option of squaring it to him, the keeper may also be distracted in having to deal with 2 threats. As it is, because Pashia didn’t offer himself as an option, Jordan’s recovery run covers him and the keeper can fully concentrate on Shawal. Shawal should still have scored though. Then of course, came the killer moment which led to van Huizen’s goal. Fudhil’s backpass was criminally underhit, and Rasaq was quick onto it, forcing Hafiz Ahmad to make a desperate tackle. At the moment I couldn’t tell if it was a penalty or not, but it didn’t matter because the ball broke to Chris van Huizen outside the box and he was calm enough to stroke it back on target into an empty net. A calamitous goal for Balestier Khalsa to concede, and really necessary for us especially as we had heavily rotated. Heavy Rotation Against one of the best sides in the league, you would normally not expect half the team to change. However, circumstances really dictate how much we can push our A-team. We all saw how much defensive effort was necessary against Zhejiang FC. We also know that Cong An Ha Noi is perhaps one of the best opponents we will face in the Shopee Cup – and we face them away from home. Then factor in the fact that we face a potentially title-defining clash against Tampines Rovers at the weekend – a Rovers team that will have the benefit of a full week’s rest while we have to travel to Vietnam and play a difficult game. With all those factors in mind, it was hard to see anything else but a heavily-rotated team. I wrote about how Hariss and Hami may have to play the whole game because Anu was suspended and Adam Swandi injured. However, I did not foresee that Coach Ranko would trust Song Uiyoung as one of the 2 central midfielders. I always believe that Song does his best work when he is not confined to a single position and can run free like a horse with no jockey. However, he turned in a disciplined, mature, and fighting performance in midfield which I think set the stage for us to come away with a relatively untroubled win. There was a sequence in the first half where he snapped into 3 tackles consecutively and the fans lapped it up. More of this Song, please! Other people who came in who were not first-team regulars were Abdul Rasaq, Carmona, and Haiqal Pashia. Carmona kept up his run of attacking contributions, with a crucial third goal just when Balestier had scored one goal to get back into the game. (Sidenote – that was some terrible defending from Lionel and Toni Datkovic, who seemed to confuse each other and allow Emaviwe to score from a Kodai corner kick). Carmona would add some of his usual good crosses into the box from a left-wing position, and it really seems like even though defensively he was badly exposed against Tampines, perhaps this attacking side of his game is something that we should really look to take advantage of, especially in

The goals may have captured the imagination of the fans at the stadium, and watching on at home, but to me, what really caught the eye was the immense defensive effort put in by the team. If we defended like this in our league games, I am pretty sure we’d still be unbeaten this season. What stuck out to me? Let’s take a quick look (because I haven’t written the preview for tomorrow’s game). Maxime was Defending! Prior to Maxime scoring THAT goal, I had a friend text me to say Maxime was having a poor game. I think if you’re focusing on offensive output, then yeah sure, it wasn’t as high as his usual standards, but it was understandable because of the amount of defending he was asked to do. Often in the first half, with the score still at 0-0, he was behind the ball, forming a midfield block with the rest of his midfielders. Here you see him winning the ball in midfield, before sprinting forward to take up an offensive position. And here you see him, back in position to ensure there is no overload on the left side. While he obviously wasn’t making tackles galore or intercepting every pass like N’Golo Kante, his presence there was crucial in ensuring we were hard to break down. He wasn’t the only one, of course. Lennart Thy put in a huge shift shutting down players from the front, while Bart Ramselaar defiinitely did more defending in this 1 game than he has in his entire time playing SPL games. It’s just surprising because Maxime is usually the “luxury player” allowed to drift around upfront and “cheat”. “Cheating” of course, is the term used to describe the practice of not dropping back on defence in the hope that when your teammates win the ball back, you are free to pounce without your defender on you. Having seen how our Sailors can do this, I am hoping that we can similarly repeat such performances when we come up against the likes of Balestier, Geylang, Tampines in the league as well. Let’s not assume that these sides are not worth the effort. Teams like Man City and Arsenal only achieved the consistency they did in the league last season because they took every team seriously. Defensive Focus In a performance full of defensive grit and focus, it is difficult to single out any player for praise. Everyone did their job perfectly. However I’d like to highlight the focus of the team, and in particular Bart Ramselaar, who often times felt like the defensive organiser of the forward line. Here you see him gesturing towards Lionel hurriedly to get back into position. What happened here was that Lionel had just won the ball brilliantly against his opponent, and then found an opportunity to burst forward. Instead of releasing a pass to one of his attacking teammates, he decided to go it alone, and eventually lost the ball. Both Bart Ramselaar and Lennart Thy were furious at the missed opportunity and started berating Lionel, but just 2 seconds later, Bart immediately switched back to match mentality, and urged Lionel to get back into his position quickly. Check it out if you want at 62:09 of the game. We were excellent at the back, but much of the good work started from the front. The Goals These goals will live long in the memory. In a post-match interview with Lionel, he pointed out that some members of the dressing room saw parallels between Hariss’s “goal” in the Champions in Blue music video, and also the goal that he scored against Zhejiang. He wasn’t the only one to spot it, I spoke to some fans in the stands who also immediately saw the funny side of it. Hariss’s goal came at a time when we had been putting more pressure on the Zhejiang goal – but to be honest, it was merely half-chances and speculative shots from range hit straight at the keeper, nothing very threatening. When the goal finally came, it was an accurate Izwan kick that started it all. He was quick to spot that Maxime had gone into a pocket of space on the left wing, and a direct ball found him with time and space. He put in a good ball for Lennart to attack, but it went just beyond him. Lennart then did well with Hami Syahin to keep the play alive before finally the ball broke to Hariss and he lashed it in from range. I think the keeper could have done slightly better, but I am not complaining. Maxime’s goal was a stunner too – but maybe more stunning for the keeper than it was for us. We are simply so used to his brilliance week in week out that I am sure some of us knew exactly what he was gonna do there. He was gonna do the keeper like he did Syazwan Buhari about 25 times in the past. Look at his eyes in the replay of the goal. He never once looks towards goal – he can sniff it without having to look at it. He gave the keeper the eyes, and faked him out – the keeper definitely thought he was going for a cross or a pass. We all know what happened next. So cool. Conclusion This was much better than the Borneo game wasn’t it! Let’s play like this all the time, guys. Full commitment, defensive solidity, and a good gameplan. We limited Zhejiang to two good chances, and these came after we had already taken the lead. Both times, Izwan Mahbud came to the rescue. In midfield, Hami and Hariss put in a professional, tidy performance full of hard running. At the back, our 3 centrebacks kept it safe. Everyone did their bit, and did it excellently. On to the next game today, a tough one against Balestier Khalsa! Written by Eddy Hirono If you’d like to support the work

Being sick like a dog is no fun, and it would have 100% sucked more if our Sailors didn’t win. Was there a little trepidation when I saw that this was a lineup devoid of our big foreign stars? Yes. But then be careful what you wished for, right? A few weeks back in the lead-up to the Geylang game, I had this to say. Well, it turned out fine in the end, let’s dive into some post-match thoughts yesterday from me watching under my blanket. The Need for Rotation + Rasaq is Back! The lineup was inevitable given that we have 6 games in 22 days coming up. The break was nice but those games will really catch up on our players’ legs. You look at our opponents coming up every 3 or 4 days, and who else would you leave Maxime Lestienne and Lennart Thy out against? Zhejiang, Balestier Khalsa, Cong An Ha Noi, BG Tampines Rovers, and Port FC. That is some insane schedule of quality opponents. But I guess that’s what you become a professional footballer for – to play in the best tournaments, and against the best teams. Domestically, Tampines Rovers are unbeaten, while Balestier Khalsa is probably the team in the league that plays the most attractive brand of football. Regionally, all three foreign teams come from leagues stronger than ours, and we will need to be at our absolute best to get anything out of those games. Yesterday was thus the right match to rotate. And while we looked a bit tentative at the start, and I did wonder where the inspiration would come from, TPU did us a huge favour by conceding a bone-headed penalty, which allowed Abdul Rasaq to step up and score a goal on his comeback start. It has been a long time out for him, so I totally understand the emotion. Some people don’t though. I’ll be charitable. Maybe this is a fan who doesn’t remember the full context of Rasaq’s circumstances – his injury stopping him from building on a very promising first season . His comeback being filled with little setbacks and eventually coming back to the pitch, slowly in the U21 league, and then finally, in the SPL. Or maybe I won’t be charitable. This person probably has the intellectual capacity of a stool (furniture or fecal matter, both work). If he is a Sailors fan, we are better off without him. If he is a fan of an opposing team, then bro, get a life. Lcarteblanche? More like Lcutyour fingersoffyoushittyasskeyboardwarrior. Carmona – Maxime Lestienne in Disguise So Carmona went and casually dropped 3 assists this game. On a day where we wondered where the service was gonna come from, he answered it quite emphatically. 3 brilliant left-footed crosses from him led to goals from Adam Swandi, Lennart Thy, and Shawal Anuar. The crucial first goal also came about because of his incisive through pass behind the defensive line – Obren took it on, got fouled, and then Rasaq put the penalty away. After that, some idiot took to Instagram to comment “its just a penalty smh“. First, it’s “it’s”, not “its”. “It’s” is short for “it is”, whereas “its” is used to signify ownership. Second, the person didn’t even have the guts to use his real account to comment, had to use some burner account. What a coward. Third, I realise I have an issue and I really can’t let go of grudges. Ok enough with this digression. Carmona provided inspiration on a day where we badly needed it, and I hope this does wonders for his confidence. I am sure he will have been a little shaken by the 5-0 defeat to Tampines, so this is perhaps the best cure for that. Ok I really can’t let it go. I need help. Anu, why, why, Anu, why? That has to be what was going through everyone’s mind yesterday. It was a rare start for him, and he was playing oh-so-well. Snapping into challenges like there was no tomorrow, keeping the momentum up for us in midfield, and it was a really tidy performance – UNTIL THE RED CARD. I can’t quite understand why he did it, and if I were to create an excuse for him, it would be because he was enjoying himself too much. On a few occasions I felt, wow, this is the old Anu. We’ve missed this! And I think the over-exuberance got to him too. It was a terrible decision though, that has wider repercussions. We’ve spoken about the fixture congestion, and we’ll need everyone we have in the squad. For one of our most experienced players to do this, it’s just sad, but it is what it is. I am sure the coach will have some harsh words for Anu. The fact that we were already 3-0 up and up a man will not be lost on the coach – there was absolutely no need to do that. Lennart Thy He started on the bench, but yet was able to come up with 2 very well-taken goals. That takes him up to 9 goals and 3 assists in 12 appearances in the league for us. Pretty good for someone described in some quarters as a flop. Hoping to see him lead us to some silverware this season! And then there was this. Watching it at home I could hear the Crew singing this at the top of their lungs, and it really made me smile. Nice that the commentators picked up on it too! A touch of humour is sometimes necessary because football gets a bit emotional and aggressive at times. This reminds us that at the end of the day, we are just fans and we are all here to have a good time. Adam Swandi Last but not least. Thoughts and prayers for Adam Swandi. It’s always scary when a player goes down without anyone touching him. Thankfully we have this update from him.

Well, that was expected wasn’t it? As predicted in the preview, Tomoyuki Doi and Noor Ali would give us some trouble and a win was not going to be straightforward. There can be some regret this morning because even though I think we didn’t play well enough to deserve all 3 points, we were in a good position to take the 3 points after two moments of quality from the Bart-Maxime pair that led to two goals. On the bright side, Tampines also dropped points, unexpectedly to a resurgent Hougang team, so their lead doesn’t widen. We could have gone top of the table though! Let’s dive right into the post-match thoughts. Bart and Maxime Let’s start with the positives. Moments of quality from the pair of them, a goal and an assist each. Bart was pushed and bodied on the way to scoring his goal but managed to just keep his feet enough to poke the ball in past Rudy Khairullah – just brilliant. Maxime did Maxime things – a goal and an assist for him a just reward for his efforts yesterday. Oh, another positive, while I was away in Jordan, I could hear from the stream that the fans were really loud, and importantly, still having a lot of fun. Just amazing. Both Teams Sloppy Perhaps due to recent results, both teams seemed to lack any attacking fluency in the first half. Coach Ranko touched on this in the post-match interview, saying that the decision-making wasn’t the best sometimes when they were attacking Geylang and were presented with 4v4 opportunities or 4v3 opportunities. I’d go a bit further than that, I’d say not only was the decision-making sometimes poor, it was the execution as well, even if the decision was correct. How many times did we see what was seemingly an easy pass roll out for a throw-in, or be hit with so little pace such that the Geylang defender could intercept it easily? Thankfully for us, this disease seemed to hit Geylang too in the first half. That was a major contributing factor towards both teams’ disjointed performances and I can’t recall any shots of note in the first half. The second half got better and we created more chances, but unfortunately we failed to finish some of them. Is Finishing the Issue? Coach Ranko also touched on the finishing not being as good as we hoped for, indicating that had we been able to finish better, we would have won. I don’t necessarily agree that finishing is the issue. Did we really test Rudy Khairullah and Hairul Syirhan a lot? I don’t think so. Two occasions come to mind when we talk about better finishing. First, the Lennart Thy header off a fantastic Maxime cross – that was eventually saved by Hairul Syirhan expertly when he jumped into the air and made himself huge. Second, the Shawal Anuar chance when he had the whole goal to aim at but only succeeded in shooting at the Geylang defender on the line, with the goalkeeper taken out of the equation. Do we score these on another day? I’d say yes. We’ve been unlucky in a sense that for the past two games, the opposition goalkeeper has pulled off an insane save at a crucial point of the game. However, you can’t just blame luck. I’d say that the bigger problem is that we are not creating more clear-cut chances. Games like these happen – your opposing goalkeeper will suddenly have the best game of his life, your striker might miss a sitter, you might hit the post, the ball takes a weird bobble in front of goal, etc. A team like Sailors should be able to shake that off, and just go about creating the next chance, and the next, and the next. Is that too much to ask for? I don’t think so. I think with the calibre of players at our disposal, we should work out a system where we are doing it more consistently rather than just playing on the break, which we did for about 2/3 of the game yesterday. Is Lionel Tan the Issue? Lionel Tan is as much at fault for the defeat yesterday as Shawal Anuar and Lennart Thy, and arguably I’d say even Rui Pires. I know it’s a cliched statement, but you win and lose together as a team. Was it a rash challenge by Lionel, going in too fast and too strong and misjudging the situation? Yes, it undoubtedly was. But that’s one bad decision. How can a player be scapegoated for making one bad decision in a game which requires you to make hundreds of decisions over the course of 90min? I think as fans, we have a tendency to pick out easy targets. I am not immune to this as well. I tend to fixate on goalkeeper errors, or centreback errors more than those errors made further upfield. When a ball is passed from the centreback into midfield, and it’s underhit, I immediately blame the centreback. The crowd also shouts “HEY JUST CLEAR IT!” It’s natural, we don’t like danger, we don’t like the uncertainty that comes with it. In the example of build-up play, I’d say that there’s a larger picture in mind – certain risks have to be taken and when we all calm down and think about it, we realise that we can’t be clearing every ball. Sometimes, we need to take those risks to draw our opponents onto us, and create the space that we need to attack. But back to Lionel and his challenge. It was a poor decision, but in my opinion, no poorer than the many decisions made by his teammates over the course of 90min which led to us only having a 1-goal advantage. Song, for example, how many times did he give the ball away? I’ll dedicate a section to him. There are some worrying signs, in my opinion. Rui Pires – what I like

Oh dear… Oh dear… Oh dear… With the main man off exploring Jordan as the Women’s Team embark on their AFC Women’s Champions League debut, I’ve taken on the unfortunate task of reliving this match over and over again to bring you some post-match thoughts. If you read Eddy’s preview, you’d know we weren’t expecting another 7-1 hammering in our favour. But surely, most of us still thought we’d come away with a hard-fought win, or at most a draw. After all, Albirex have not been firing on all cylinders this season. Well, Eddy was right about it being anything but straightforward, and his 3-1 score prediction was spot on—just for the wrong team. Ouch. Squad Depth? We knew there’d be some rotation, and sure enough, Bailey Wright and Rui Pires made way for Hariss Harun and the returning Obren Kjlajic. Shawal also came in for Song, meaning we had a few changes from the side that started against Borneo FC Samarinda on Thursday night. But from the off, it didn’t look promising. The Sailors seemed all at sea in transition, giving Albirex far too much room and causing a few heart-in-mouth moments in our box. The team looked disjointed, with players having some rather animated discussions about who should be doing what defensively. Attacking-wise, no movement, no creativity—just flat. The team looked knackered, while Albirex came close to scoring several times. Obren, who was clearly struggling with fitness, had to be subbed off after just 30 minutes. He didn’t look his usual lively self as he headed back to the bench. Was this sub purely because of fitness? Tactical? We’ll never know. The fans were getting a bit antsy, and I can’t say I blame them. It’s been a tough week, and this performance felt like the result of weeks of minimal rotation and our first taste of fixture congestion in what’s turning into a marathon season. Some fans I spoke to reckon our squad depth might not be as deep as we thought. Chances Go Begging – A Familiar Tale The second half started more brightly. The movement was better, but we were still missing that creative spark. We came close to taking the lead—an Albirex goal-line clearance and a brilliant save from Hassan Sunny kept us out. But, as they say, football’s a game of fine margins—right before Albirex’s opener, it could have easily been 2-0 to us. In the post-match interview, Coach Ranko said it plainly: when you get those chances, you HAVE to put them away. We didn’t, and Albirex punished us, catching us on the break to go 1-0 up. The match stats surprised me, to be honest—despite the result, both sides were pretty evenly matched in possession, attempts, and shots on target. According to Sofascore, we posted an impressive 3.42 xG, a full point higher than Albirex’s. While that may make it sound like we did quite alright, obviously it’s the result that matters most – we just couldn’t finish our dinner on a night where we had the chance to go top of the table. Insult to Injury – Or Injury to Insult? As if the night couldn’t get any worse, Toni Datkovic took a nasty knock to the ribs after colliding with Hassan. Losing a key player like Sicario with important fixtures ahead is far from ideal. Here’s hoping Toni bounces back soon—we’re all rooting for you, Sicario! What Next? I’ve seen some fans and the usual suspects on social media throwing around some rather outlandish comments. There’s the usual, sack this coach, sack X player, etc. But surely it’s onwards and upwards from here, right? As fans, our job is to rally behind the team and give them the support they need to get back on track. The title race is far from over, so it’s definitely not all doom and gloom. (Shoutout to Eddy for that one!) This is the first time the lads have lost two games on the trot in over a year (back-to-back 3-1 defeats to DPMM and Albirex last season). But they’ve shown time and again that when they’re down, they’re never out. The team’s got work to do, and we fans can do better too. If we want to bring the domestic treble back to Bishan, we’ve got to do it together. Conclusion This wasn’t the easiest piece to write, but if there’s one positive to take from that disappointing night in Jurong, it’s the fans. What a turnout from The Crew for an away trip to the West—singing their hearts out right to the bitter end! So, 3-1 to Albirex—a familiar disappointment at Jurong East Stadium and probably a fair result. Credit to Albirex, who’ve found new life under their new management. But we’ll bounce back. Next up, it’s Geylang at home as we return to Bishan—and, hopefully, to winning ways. Friday can’t come soon enough! I’ve got faith in the players and the coaching staff to iron out the creases and bring this club back to where it belongs. With a string of continental fixtures on the horizon, it’s now or never to turn this season around. COME ON YOU SAILORS! Written by Calum Lim 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!

Expectedly, Coach Ranko started a strong team in our opening match for the Shopee Cup. Rather unexpectedly, our team seemed completely off as they struggled to adapt to a terrible pitch that was reminiscent of Toa Payoh Stadium on its worst days. However, in this short piece (I still haven’t packed for Jordan and I leave tonight), I will talk about some observations of mine and why I don’t feel we can say that the defeat only came because of the pitch or because of other factors such as poor refereeing. Terrible Pitch The pitch looked bad before the game, but it was only when it started did we see how bad it was. Both sides struggled with the ball, but of course our Sailors struggled with it even more. You could see it in the passing – gone was the usual zip in our passes, or any pretty passing patterns. Our players were underhitting or overhitting their passes, struggling to make sense of the pitch. There seemed to be a certain fear, a certain tentativeness, and our opponents seemed to cope much better with the pitch as the game went on (even if it did screw up a couple of their own attacks due to the unpredictable nature of the bounce of the ball when dribbling/passing). But I won’t go so far as to blame the pitch – I think as a team, we have to adapt better. First, this is not even Borneo FC’s home stadium – so we can’t even say they are much more familiar with the pitch than we are. They just adapted to it way better. Second, I think it is on the players and the management to see how they can prepare better for such games. The Shopee Cup takes us to different parts of Southeast Asia, with differing financial standards, and differing standards of facilities. Unlike the ACL last season where we travelled to Hong Kong and South Korea and played in world-class stadiums, the Shopee Cup will bring with it days like last night’s. Could the coaching team have arranged training sessions in Choa Chu Kang Stadium to try to prepare for such games? In Singapore, we’ve been somewhat spoilt with the predictable nature of artificial turf and also the nicely-manicured surfaces in our Mattar Road training centre. Our big-name players as well, will have been brought up in world-class academies. This is not something they will be used to – let’s learn from this and prepare better next time. Third, could the in-game tactics be tweaked to not just counter, but take advantage of this pitch? In this kind of game, you need to take advantage of the unpredictability, and avoid getting caught in build-up play. Shawal Anuar should have been brought on earlier. You avoid alot of the problems of getting caught in possession by going a little more direct, and Shawal is exactly the sort of player you want chasing down long diagonal passes. Just go back to an article on this website about 1.5 years ago – we wrote about how Shawal has a great first touch. But unlike the feted first touches of players like Iniesta and Berbatov where they kill the ball dead and then play it, Shawal is an expert in using his first touch to beat players by knocking it past them. I’ll let you read our analysis back then. All in all, a very disappointing failure to adapt to the conditions was one of the main factors that led to last night’s result. It’s still very early, so let’s learn from this. Not a Second Yellow Card Rui’s first yellow card was deserved. The second? If that’s a yellow card, everytime I shake hands with someone I should be sent to prison. Absolute nonsense. The slightest of contact left Berguinho rolling on the floor like a …. I don’t quite know what would do justice to this sentence. He rolled on the floor like a thing. Like a thing conceived after Neymar had a lovechild with a rolling pin. Anyway, there was barely any contact and it came a minute after Rui was shown the first yellow. Surely the referee could have given him a talking-to even if he felt it was a bad challenge? We weren’t playing that well and I wouldn’t dare say that had Rui stayed on the pitch, we would definitely have overcome the deficit and equalised or even won the game. But a bad decision is a bad decision, and the referee made a huge error here. Individual Errors – Team Responsibility I am quite annoyed by the constant chatter surrounding our defenders / midfielders after a defeat. It’s always sack this guy, replace that guy, bench this other guy. Rui made 2 big errors last night. The first was when he failed to track Gaucho at a setpiece, and he scored. We knew about their prowess from crosses and setpieces, so I think Rui should be very disappointed by what happened. He has his hands on Gaucho, then suddenly, without much happening at all, he inexplicably loses him and Gaucho scores – not the ideal way to open the game. The second is a little more unfortunate. A low cross is played in, and the idea is absolutely correct – instead of hammering it clear, Rui tries to play a pass around the corner for a very-free Hami Syahin. It would have undoubtedly led to a good counter-attack if the ball was used properly. I said in the preview article that Borneo FC is susceptible to the counter-attack, so who knows what would have happened if that pass came off. Alas, it didn’t. The ball took some unpredictable bounces on the turf, and Rui got it caught in between his feet. The son of Neymar and a rolling pin couldn’t believe his luck, and tucked it in with ease. Undoubtedly, these were his errors. And he deserves some criticism for them. But let’s not just

It’s been a really hectic time work-wise and also personally, so I will keep this short. It is not often that you say a 3-0 win is disappointing, but I felt this match was disappointing in how it could and should have been so many more. Don’t take it from me, take it from Lionel Tan, Coach Rankovic, and even the opposing coach. They all said that it could have been a lot worse. Both Joseph and I predicted big wins, and what we didn’t count on is an off-day from our attackers. Utter Dominance We had this to say in the preview. Amazingly, we managed to see a repeat, except this time we racked up 4.18 xG. In the first half alone, our Sailors managed to hit 18 shots, which included Maxime allowing Naumovski to make a save with a weak finish in front of goal, Song shooting straight at a defender with the goalkeeper out of the picture, Shawal Anuar failed to pull the trigger from near the penalty spot and countless other chances that really should have ended up in the back of the net. This theme continued in the second half. Maxime Lestienne even contrived to miss one on his favoured left foot right in front of goal. However, even on his off-day, he ended up with 2 assists. Insane. I’d say we are both lucky and unlucky. Unlucky that we didn’t score more, because Naumovski is just such a beast, but also lucky that it didn’t cost us in the end, except for the minor matter of goal difference. We are still 2 ahead of Tampines Rovers on that front, but 1 point behind. Hopefully this doesn’t come back to bite us in the ass at the end of the season. Thy Worth His Weight In Goals (And More) Even when he wasn’t scoring goals, we had always been singing praises of Lennart Thy. His unselfish runs open up space for his teammates, and even when he was going through a lean goalscoring spell, he never once acted like anything other than the perfect teammate. There was no demanding to take penalties off Maxime Lestienne, no shooting from impossible angles, and even though Maxime was reluctant to pass to him in the first few matches he played, when it came time for Lennart to pass to Max, he did so readily. Now he is onto six goals and three assists for the season, having started the season later than the rest of the league. That’s 9 goal contributions in 8 games, an impressive return. Even without his goals though, I’ve always lauded his hard work for the team, and let me just show you two examples of how he gives us a different dimension in build-up. Both times, the ball is with our centrebacks and Brunei DPMM tries to set a trap for our defenders. A slightly loose pass, or a pass to a player who has been designated pre-match to be the pressing trigger might then lead to a bit of panic for our Sailors. Lennart Thy’s aerial presence and workrate changes that for us though – after the above frames, Thy presented himself for an aerial challenge, and while one resulted in Sailors keeping possession and the other didn’t – they both eventually lead to similarly dangerous chances. Simply put, Lennart gives us a variety of build-up options which can help us break the press of our opponents. Upcoming Fixtures Post-match, Coach Rankovic appealed to the FAS to allow Singapore’s continental representatives to have more rest in between league fixtures and continental fixtures. If you look at the fixtures, you can see why. A match on Thursday night away from home, followed by a game on Sunday against a resurgent Albirex sounds like a potential banana peel. I am sure this is not ideal for the players’ rest and recovery requirements. This set of fixtures also shows that quite plainly. Could the FAS do more? Probably. Should they? That is a harder question to answer. The gap between games and the back-to-back nature of them will make it hard for our Sailors, but is this any different from teams in the UEFA Champions League or Europa League? I am not so sure. If anything, our journeys to Vietnam and to Borneo may be nearer than some of the distances undertaken by European teams. Given our depth, we should be able to cope, and I hope we see minutes given to our fringe players as well, to help manage workload. Conclusion Nothing much more to say except that this could and should have been double digits. DPMM caught us on a very good day. They were horrendous. Till next time! 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!

Without question, the worst performance I’ve ever seen Hougang put in against us. And yes, that includes the 9-4 drubbing a few years back. I remember at 6-1, I turned to a fan in the stands and went – I think this could hit double digits. That we didn’t hit double digits is to no credit of Hougang’s – we simply eased off a little, and also could have been a little sharper with some of our finishing and decision-making. Hougang is a team in big trouble and for the sake of the league, I hope they fix things soon. If you’re wondering – hey, didn’t they just beat Albirex? Yes, they did, but Albirex is in even bigger trouble. Another story for another day. Here’s some of my post-match thoughts. Setpiece Horror As predicted in the preview, Bailey was gonna score from a setpiece. This happened in the first half off a Maxime Lestienne corner kick. This also happened in the second half when Toni Datkovic rose highest to head home from another Maxime Lestienne corner kick. For both goals, the defending was so poor. Where was the marking, and why was Ensar Bruncevic not jumping to compete? You know it’s bad when even opposition fans are frustrated on behalf of Hougang fans. The goals from Bailey and Toni mean that Hougang has now conceded 8 goals from set pieces this season, the highest in the league. Bailey is on 3 goals this season – 7 more to hit his season’s target! Also, I know it’s not a setpiece goal but I will comment on it here because it’s a headed goal. As good as Shawal’s goal was – please take a look at the replay. He had so much space he could have set up a shop, or maybe even a whole shopping centre there. How can you leave him alone in the box? Just mind-boggling, especially when you consider that he was on their books for 3 years, so they should know exactly what he is capable of. While the Hougang team may be in a terrible state, credit must be given to the fans, who kept singing for most of the match, but quite understandably faded off nearing the end of the game. For the sake of their fans, I hope Hougang bucks up. Lennart Thy Man of the Match Lennart Thy was given the Man of the Match award, and I think it was well-deserved. There may be some debate about this considering he did miss 2 big chances. In the post-match interview, he admitted this as well, saying he should have had 4 or 5 goals. I too, think that he should have scored more in this game – but I would like to use the following paragraphs to once again state how much I admire his selflessness and his teamplay. Strikers are usually selfish, and look to pass as a last resort – but look at the lead-up to the 7th goal. Once he got the ball and saw Haiqal Pashia making a good run ahead of him, without a second thought he played a brilliant through pass into the open space on his WEAK FOOT. The vision, ability and willingness to do that is amazing. He then got his reward a few moments later when he continued running to support the attack, and when Maxime and Pashia made a right mess of a presentable scoring opportunity, he was there to reverse a shot on his left foot past Zaiful Nizam. As for the two big chances he missed? Well, he should be putting those away, and while that’s negative, a positive is that he is even getting these chances. Let’s take a look at the English Premier League’s stat for big chances missed. You might see a few familiar names in there. Well, surely noone is saying that Erling Haaland is a poor striker? I think the jury is still out on Lennart as a finisher, but the big consolation is that he’s still very much a team player who offers so much more than just goals. He has 4 goals, 3 assists, and 1 secondary assist in his 8 matches with us. For someone who’s had a supposedly slow start, I think those are already very encouraging stats. While there may be some who say that a striker’s goal is to get goals, I think the main goalscoring threats in this team are clearly Maxime and Shawal. If Lennart Thy’s selfless teamwork allows those two to bang in the goals, then I won’t be complaining. Regardless, I’m sure there’s more to come from him, and more chances for the Crew to belt out the truly awful Lennart Thy chant (sung to the tune of the chorus of Wa Meng Ti). If you are curious about what the lyrics are …. Lennart Thy, Lennart Thy, From Eredivisie, Number 9 from Germany, On a goalscoring spree! Lennart Thy’s First Goal was Offside A little funny that I just sang his praises and now I am looking to convince you that his 1st goal was offside. But it clearly was offside. First, you can see here that both Shawal and Song are in an offside position when Lennart hits the ball towards goal. Shawal is far from the action so is irrelevant, but Song is right in front of Zaiful, slightly to his left. The shot also comes through Song. He literally hops over it. If I were a Hougang fan, I’d be livid about this. As a Sailors fan, it is still mildly annoying because you just know one day it’s gonna be us on the end of such a shitty decision. What is the point of VAR if even with the benefit of replays and some time to think, you don’t come to the right decision? Conclusion There’s not much else to say here. Everyone had a good game, but Hougang were so poor I am not sure we can glean

The thing that struck me most from this match is Maxime on two occasions very deliberately passing the ball back to his teammates for them to shoot and score. First, Song Ui-Young, and then Lennart Thy. On both occasions, Maxime could well have finished off the chance himself, but he decided to set up his teammate. It made me feel like something has shifted. Although Maxime has never been an unselfish player (he finished last season with 21 assists), these two very deliberate acts of service can’t help but make me feel he’s embraced his role as one of the leaders of the team – it was a Michael Jordan moment essentially. Let me dive into that and more in my post-match thoughts. Maxime Lestienne x Michael Jordan The year is 1989. Phil Jackson took over a Chicago Bulls team that was performing well, but had never won the Championship. The Chicago Bulls had the brightest star in all of basketball, Michael Jordan. He was the scoring leader of the league as well, but yet the Bulls didn’t win a championship. Teams like the Detroit Pistons came up with the “Jordan Rules”, which basically meant that they doubled up on him and beat the shit out of him. When Phil Jackson arrived, he spoke with Jordan and told him that in order for the Bulls to win the Championship, he might have to sacrifice being top-scorer. Jackson would institute the “triangle”, which meant that the ball would move quickly between all players of the team, not just Jordan. The ball would be kept moving, so it would be more difficult for teams to just target Jordan. For this to happen, Jordan would have to trust his teammates, and also actively get them into play and involve them more. We know how this ends. Michael Jordan does indeed score less, and his ball-handling percentages went down too, but he won 6 Championships with the Bulls. Jordan’s (and Jackson’s) time with the Chicago Bulls makes for a fascinating read, but for the sake of brevity, I shan’t elaborate more. Basically, the rest of his teammates get involved more and become legends in their own right. The parallels are obvious. Maxime Lestienne is far and away the best player in the league, but he will feel that he hasn’t won enough titles. And I feel like something clicked in his mind after the humiliation of the Tampines game. He must have felt like for the duration of that game, he was on an island, alone and separated from the rest of his teammates. Don’t take my word for it, look at how long he had to hold up the ball for Song to arrive on the scene, before he squared it to Song for him to finish. Look at how the angle was perfect for a left-footer to caress into the far post once Lennart Thy played the pass to Max. On both occasions, it made sense for Max to shoot. Even if he had missed, noone would have accused him of being selfish. But that’s why I ascribe so much significance to these moments. Context is all-important as well. I will break each chance down and go deeper into the context. Song Ui-Young Song has not been on his best form this season – far from it. He is less assured in possession, and while he still runs around like a Tasmanian devil (the Looney Tunes one) causing havoc wherever he goes, it has been less effective than Home United fans will remember. He may be struggling with his injury a little still, it may be psychological, noone knows. But something is not quite right and the team would definitely benefit from a Song that is firing on all cylinders. Song had one brilliant move in the game where he beat Kan Kobayashi to the ball, chested it down, shielded the ball aggressively, and then curled a brilliant through pass behind the defensive line with his weaker foot. This eventually led to a goal for Maxime when Shawal expertly set him up at the edge of the area, but there was no doubt that Song truly excelled here. However, earlier in the game, Song missed an absolute sitter. It is surely an early contender for Miss of the Season. Chris van Huizen whipped a low cross into the corridor of uncertainty between the centreback and the goalkeeper, and Song was right there to take advantage in front of an open goal. From the above position, he only managed to scuff it back towards the keeper. A shocking miss. You add that to his ongoing struggles with his injury and form, and you begin to see why Maxime might have held on to the ball for so long to pass to Song. He knew the goal was the bare minimum that Song needed to not feel like absolute shit after the game. Song’s lack of a celebration after the goal is telling as well – he realised that he should have scored far earlier than that when the score was 1-0 and the game was still in the balance. Lennart Thy I have spoken about Thy’s struggles before. I have always maintained that Lennart Thy is a good player who will really elevate the team. Goals-wise he may be struggling now, but I think we will see his true value come the continental games when we go up against stronger opponents. That is where attributes like tenacity, grit, and sheer dog-like hard work will come to the fore. But the fans are not the only ones who think that Lennart Thy should score more. Lennart himself thinks it, and his teammates think it too. When we spoke with Toni Datkovic post-match, it was interesting that he said that while Lennart has been playing well, all strikers are affected when they don’t get goals. He also said that’s probably why Maxime so unselfishly set him up for a goal – he wanted Lennart

Once again, Chin Heng takes over the writing of this article, and he lends his unique statistical analytical mind to the page. Enjoy! I am kinda glad I don’t have to comment on this trainwreck of a game. I could save myself a few minutes by copying-and-pasting some paragraphs from the last few Post-Match articles because we once again witnessed a Sailors performance that left much to be desired, except this time we were up against a team that actually had the quality to punish us. This was set to be a very close encounter on paper, with Sailors and Tampines having identical records on multiple fronts coming into the game – both teams had 6 wins and a draw (beating every other team in the league except Geylang), and had scored 24 goals (8 in the 1st half, 16 in the 2nd half, 3 set piece goals). However, the final score was anything but close. It was a disastrous performance by the Sailors but as they say, you can only beat what’s in front of you, Tampines still had to do their part and the result was a resounding 5-0 victory in Gavin Lee’s first ever win against coach Rankovic. Tampines were the better team and deserved the win for sure, but I felt that they were definitely not better by 5 goals. Be Careful What You Wish For Coach Rankovic mentioned during the pre-match interview that he hoped the referee would ‘let things go and let the game flow’, and he got what he wished for in the 3rd minute when Boris Kopitovic left his trailing foot in a challenge with Zharfan, resulting in his heel striking Zharfan on the face. The referee didn’t even give a card initially, but after a VAR review, settled on a yellow card to Kopitovic. In my opinion, this was clearly a deliberate action by Kopitovic to leave his foot in, either in an attempt to earn his 97th penalty of the season or to leave a hole in Zharfan’s face. However, since he didn’t achieve either goal, I agree there wasn’t quite enough in it to warrant a red. It’s a close one though, and I suspect that if the referee had given a red initially, the VAR would not have overturned the decision either. Nevertheless, I’d like to state that this is not an excuse for our loss. Red or no red doesn’t seem to matter when you put in such a bad performance. On that note, we can’t help but wonder if the Sailors could have made a difference to the result by engaging in similar tactics to stamp our authority on the game, going a little harder into each challenge, or leaving a foot in here and there, just to show the other team that we are there. There’s no right answer to this of course, a mistimed attempt could easily leave us playing the rest of the game with 10-men as well. There’s just something about watching the other team pass pretty patterns around but us not doing much to leave our mark on them. Change in Formation The Sailors lined up with 5 at the back this game, after making 4 changes from the win against Balestier, with Anu, Hafiz, Lionel, and Shawal coming in for Adam Swandi, Chris, Hami, and Song. For the first 40 mins, this all seemed to work as each of the 3 centre backs were winning their individual battles, putting in important blocks and tackles to contain the variety of attacking threats coming from Boris Kopitovic, Seia Kunori, Faris Ramli, and Glenn Kweh. Then came the disaster in a span of 10 or so minutes either side of half-time. Tampines scored 2 goals in quick succession at the stroke of half-time, first from Boris Kopitovic after a well-timed run to beat the offside trap, followed by a Glenn Kweh tap-in after Zharfan inexplicably spilled the ball on the goal-line, straight onto Glenn’s foot. Changes were made at half-time as we switched to 4 at the back with Song coming in for Lionel to chase the game, but seemed to have no effect as 3 more quick goals by the 55th minute left the Sailors shell shocked. Glenn Kweh beat Sergio a little too easily down the right on the 47th minute before squaring the ball for Kopitovic to finish, then former Sailor Faris Ramli received the ball wide on the left and cut in to finish into the bottom corner on 49, before Irfan Najeeb wrapped up the game through an open header from a corner kick on 55. There is an argument to be made that all 5 goals were down to our mistakes, something that I am sure the team will examine closely back on the training ground. Positives You would have to dig very hard to find positives from a 5-0 loss, but I think there may still be a silver lining or two to be found. There has been some criticism directed at Song in recent weeks as he did not seem to be performing at the same levels as he did before he left in 2023, but in this game we saw glimpses of the old Song. It may have been due to the scoreline, but he appeared to be fired up, ready to take on defenders and chase loose balls like he used to. Not quite where he wants to be I’m sure, but a commendable effort nonetheless. We also saw Rui Pires coming back from injury to finally make his SPL debut, after playing exclusively in the ACL last season due to the foreigner restrictions in the league. As Eddy mentioned in his preview article, we once again showed a lack of willingness to play the ball through midfield in this game, restricting our options when going forward, but the introduction of Rui did seem to help a little on this front as he showed some effort to orchestrate the play in midfield