Post-Match Thoughts

Our Sailors were far from their sparkling best against Tanjong Pagar United, but came out of the game with a crucial three points. These three points allow us to stay in the title race (mathematically but not realistically), but more importantly help halt the losing run. We will need some momentum going into the AFC Champions League and also the Singapore Cup, so even though the league is gone, we must win all the games remaining to get some confidence back. I have seen many suggestions that the Sailors were lucky to win the game, but is that really a fair assessment of the game? Let me share some of my thoughts on that. Fashah Man of the Match Coach Ranko paid tribute to Fashah’s Man of the Match performance after the game, and it was clear to everyone in attendance that he was having a good game. As early as the 3rd minute, Fashah did well to stand up and spread himself to deny Adam Swandi from point-blank range. In the 40th minute, it was that man again, making a vital save from close range as it looked to all of us like Adam Swandi was bound to score. He was blameless for the 2nd and 3rd goals scored by us, and even though the 1st goal came as a result of a dodgy goal kick, he did manage to make a good save from Diego Lopes’s shot. It was just unfortunate that the rebound fell right to Maxime Lestienne. The Sailors actually created many chances and shots on goal, and had it not been for Fashah’s imperious form, I think we would have been out of sight far before Tanjong Pagar scored their second goal. He made 8 saves, and the stats showed that in terms of xG, he should have conceded 4.72 goals. His interventions were vital. Illusion of Luck – Combination of Timing + Circumstance With stats like these, and the xG of 4.72 (Sailors) v 1.3 (Tanjong Pagar), it is perhaps a little strange that people felt the Sailors were lucky. I think it’s a combination of timing and circumstance, in that the Sailors were behind from the 64th minute all the way until Maxime was fouled for the penalty in the 76th minute. Neutral observers probably felt that Tanjong Pagar was close to pulling off a shock win, until the rash challenge by Raihan Rahman. On that point, I have seen suggestions that it is not a penalty and that Raihan got the ball first. I’d suggest in the most delicate terms, that these people might want to see their optician, and get a new pair of spectacles made. Take a look at the link below, watch it from both angles provided, and I am sure you will agree. I have stopped the time at just before the replays for your convenience. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, back to the point. When a penalty comes as a result of a poor decision by our opponents rather than us “earning” it, I think there is a tendency for people to chalk it up to “luck”. Simply put, Raihan Rahman should have calmed himself down, and coolly hoisted the ball away. He did not need to go in with full swing to whack the ball away. Once he made up his mind to do that, and the ball took an awkward bobble, he had already committed to the swing and thus he ended up kicking Maxime. There was a lengthy VAR check and there were some suggestions that he should have been sent off for a reckless challenge. I think the referee considered the fact that his intention was probably not to kick Maxime. Probably the right decision in the end. The winner from Shawal came 5 minutes before the end of the game as well, adding to the feeling that the Sailors “got away” with the win. Given the stats, I’d disagree with that point. Albirex beat the Sailors in very similar circumstances as well when it came to the timing of goals, having to come from behind, etc, and we gave them full credit for the comeback. I choose to give our Sailors credit for the comeback too. Sleep-walking Defending At times in the first half, people around me commented that the game felt like a pre-season friendly. It did have such a vibe. It seemed like players were not really snapping into challenges, allowing their opponents time and space to saunter around the pitch, and pick out their passes. It was from one such pass that led to TPU scoring from the spot. A routine long ball + some miscommunication ended up being costly as it resulted in a penalty being conceded, and Hafiz Nor getting a yellow card which leaves him suspended for the next game. I felt this sleep-walking vibe continued into the second half as well – Akram Azman was given way too much time and space to amble into the box and pick his spot. If we continue defending like that, we will be taken apart by Spurs and the AFC Champions League teams. Maxime Lestienne + Asis In a season where we are unlikely to win the league, my focus has shifted to hoping that Maxime finishes as top-scorer and also wins the Player of the Season gong. This was probably the easiest brace of his career, slotting in from 1 yard out, and converting a penalty, but it leaves him level on goals with Ryoya Taniguchi – I think it is gonna be crucial to match or exceed his goal tally, please give the powers that be no excuse for taking away Player of the Season from him for two years in a row. Shout-out to Asis as well. In our post-match interview of the fans, aside from the usual flowers for Maxime Lestienne, a fan also singled out Asis for praise. The U21 captain came on, played almost half an hour,

I should have seen it coming, I should have read the signs. Anyway (anywaaaay), I guess it’s over. The last time we played Albirex, we used a Westlife song in our reel to accompany footage of Hafiz Nor flying through the air to execute a brilliant off-the-line clearance, so I thought it was perhaps fitting that this time around, Westlife gets a mention again. If you didn’t spot the Westlife reference, it’s probably cos you’re too young. No matter. Head on down to Youtube and watch tons of Westlife music videos and thank me later. When we scored in the 73rd minute, I genuinely thought we had done it and secured a much-needed win to really open up the title race. But what was I thinking? I have been brought up in the Arsenal school of raised expectations and I really should have guarded myself against having hope. It was a game where I thought we did pretty well in the first half, lost abit of control in the second half before we scored, and then we saw an amazing fightback from Albirex. Heartbreaking – I thought we might be able to cling on for a slightly unlikely victory. Before I share some thoughts with you, can I just say what a delight it was to witness a sold-out crowd in Jurong East Stadium? Fans from both sides were absolutely brilliant in creating a great atmosphere. What an advert for the league. Ok, on to my thoughts. Hassan Sunny First things first, the injury looked very bad and we hope he’s fine. For those not present at the game, you will be relieved to know that the crowd gave Hassan a very warm reception, and when he was injured, there was no booing or unpleasant remarks except for perhaps 1 or 2 unidentified black sheep in the crowd. Upon hearing these remarks, the Crew decided to respond in the best way possible, encouraging each other to chant louder so that we could drown out the noises of a negative few. I think most football fans know that there is a line that should not be crossed. They sometimes shout “Diver!” at players who take a tumble, and boo as the player stays on the ground. However, in a matter of seconds, once it becomes clear that it is a real injury, and the player is receiving treatment, even the most hard-hearted opposition supporter will keep quiet and allow the treatment to proceed. I am pleased and relieved that Hassan could receive his treatment in peace. We are pleased to update that when we spoke to Swan Army (Albirex fan club) members, they informed us that Hassan should be fine as he was discharged on the day itself. The Blame Game In the aftermath of the game, Lionel and Anu copped most of the flak for the late defeat. Fingers were pointed at them for the first two goals conceded, and I think it’s a little harsh. Could they have done better? Yes. But could Hariss have perhaps done better to shuffle over to make a tackle / block instead of holding off to prevent a cutback across goal since Mamat was already covering that option? Perhaps. Could Zharfan have come out of goal faster and just dived at Yokoyama’s feet, or closed the angle better? Yes, perhaps. Could Coach Ranko also be at fault for switching to 5 at the back after we took the lead? This meant that Diego and Hami were tasked to protect the space in front of the 3 centre-backs, not a task they are particularly suited for. Yes, perhaps Coach Ranko was at fault too. If you’re wondering what the point I am making is, the point is that hindsight is 20/20. When Lionel stepped out to make the challenge, more often than not he will win the ball or give away a foul given his physical defending style. This time Kunori did well (with a bit of luck) to hold on to the ball and divert it into the path of Yokoyama. If you ask Kunori himself whether he thought his little flick of the boot would work so well, he’ll probably chuckle and tell you “No”. It worked because Anu moved across just a little bit for the ball to squirt through to him. For a goal to happen, lots of little things have to go right for the scoring team, and the team that conceded can always find something that can be done better. And with the benefit of hindsight, some of these little decisions always look worse than they do in real time. I think instead of blaming individuals, we should instead give credit to Albirex for what they did. If you look at how they played in the entirety of the second half, and how they responded after going behind, I think immense credit should be given to them. Let’s put it this way – when the Sailors overcame a 2-0 deficit at Bishan Stadium earlier this season against Albirex, did we credit it more to our own efforts, or did we pick out Albirex’s mistakes leading up to those goals? Yup. Exactly. Look at the above screencap. It’s the 79th minute, and yet they have so much confidence to take the game to us. I have highlighted in pink five Albirex players, while there is another one to the right that is not captured, hence I used a pink arrow to indicate where he is. Lesser teams might think – what if we lose the ball here? We would have committed 6 people into the penalty area or around it, and there are only 3 outfielders left to defend it. But not Albirex. They pushed up, knowing that it was essential that their right-back stays all the way wide, so as to force LCS to spread out their defenders. If the right-back didn’t make such a deep run, then Nur Adam would be able to tuck in, and

Well, I could not be more wrong in my pre-match preview. The only thing I got right was that Hakeme Yazid is a superstar and we should be wary of him. However, I under-estimated the Bruneian outfit. Yes, there was a red card, and it is very tough playing with 10 men, but I felt that even in the period before Bailey Wright was sent off, DPMM were the slightly better team. It was a very eventful game, and unfortunately, it was just a game where I felt everything that could go wrong, went wrong for us. The crowd (myself included) was incensed by Jansen Foo, and so not only will this article talk about the players on both sides, but it will definitely also touch on Jansen’s performance. Tiredness + Sloppiness I am gonna sound like a broken recorder soon, but I feel that some rotation was badly needed. Our players have played many games without changes and I think it really showed – as simple passes went astray and the touches were not as assured as they usually were. We also did not press with the same ferocity that we did against the likes of Tanjong Pagar and Young Lions. All 3 goals could be said to have been sloppy, while the red card was a direct result of some wayward passing. It was something that sparked a bit of a debate in the SailorFanTalk Telegram chat, with some fans thinking that our depth options are not good enough, or that our players are professional athletes and should be able to handle a game every 3 to 4 days. In the end, we did a poll and the results were clear in that the majority felt the squad could have done with a bit of freshening up. Especially with Brunei DPMM having played just 3 days ago, I think a little bit of freshness may just have been enough to tip the scales more in our favour. As it was, tiredness did take its toll, and we lacked the sharpness necessary to break down DPMM. To make matters worse, Diego had to be subbed off in the second half, and Coach Ranko said it was because he was carrying a small injury and he wanted to rest him for the weekend’s match against Albirex. We hope he’ll be fine. For supporters who said that our depth options are not good enough, I think I would humbly disagree with them. Someone like Zulqarnaen Suzliman (Mamat) in particular would perhaps have been perfect for this game. Hafiz Nor’s tricky situation re: potentially picking up his 4th yellow card meant it was a perfect opportunity for him to get some minutes and inject some freshness into the backline. For 2 of the goals, I think we were undone by a lack of pace in the backline, and perhaps if Mamat had played, his energy and pace might have given us a better chance at defending those goals. Of course, it calls back to mind his monster defensive performance against Geylang Intl some months back, where we had this to say – Also, while chasing a game and with 10 men, would Haiqal Pashia and Rusyaidi Salime not have been good enough options to bring on? As it was, Mamat was given 10min of gametime, while Haiqal and Rusyaidi were not given any gametime. Once it is clear that the match was not gonna be won, it might have made sense to try and preserve some legs for the Albirex game. If there is such little trust in the bench options, and an unwillingness to use them in any capacity, I do worry. In the short term, I worry about our chances against Albirex this weekend, in the medium term I worry about our squad rotation taking into account the Spurs game (a separate article will be written about this), and in the longer term I worry about how our squad will cope with all the AFC Champions League games. Missed chances Sigh. Maxime’s missed penalty, the 1-2 in front of goal where Maxime squared to Diego and Diego’s shot was cleared off the line. That one conjured up images of our goal against Daegu. The score was still 1-0 then by the way, so had that gone in, it would have been 1-1 and Bailey might not have got sent off. Maxime and Diego have saved us plenty of times this season, so let’s not dwell on this – they are entitled to off-days. Shit happens. I wonder if this is the only game this season where we have scored but Maxime and Diego did not contribute to the goal tally (whether with a goal or an assist). DPMM were very, very, very good Sometimes when doing these post-match thoughts, I tend to fixate quite a bit on how badly the Sailors played, and what we could have done differently. This match is perhaps a little different because I thought that DPMM were excellent. Besides Hakeme in attack, I thought Farshad Noor (Afghan national team captain) was brilliant in midfield, winning 9 of 15 of his duels, and making 5 interceptions. His defensive work was really good, and he popped up everywhere to help put small fires out before they could do any damage. He could even count himself unlucky not to have scored, with a late effort that hit the bar. Elsewhere in the team, Helmi down the left was also a real menace all game, with his fresh legs allowing him to not only make offensive runs, but also help in DPMM’s defensive efforts. This is what rotation can do for you – Helmi only played one half in the previous game. Hakeme was a livewire all night and it was clear that he was instructed to try to beat the offside trap at every opportunity. He would linger in an offside position near our defensive line, and then make a sharp darting run back onside (either in

I am writing this after watching Albirex drop points to DPMM Brunei, but I will try to ignore that in giving my post-match thoughts for our 4-0 victory over Young Lions. At half-time the score was 0-0, and we suffered a major scare when Zharfan Rohaizad had to pull off an outstanding double save from first Harhys Stewart, and then Syahadat Masnawi, to prevent us going in 1-0 down at the break. Considering that Albirex took barely a few minutes to open up Young Lions in the previous games, there were more than a few nerves at half-time. Our Sailors had to improve in the second half, and they did. In the end, it was very, very comfortable – let’s take a look at the stats. Our dominance was never in doubt in the 2nd half. But what caused the deadlock at half-time? Here are some thoughts about the game. The C-word Prior to the game, we said in our preview that all the stats pointed to a comfortable Sailors victory, and the only thing that could potentially stumble us was complacency. So it was pretty interesting that when we spoke to Nur Adam post-game, he mentioned that perhaps the Sailors were a bit complacent in the first half, and took the Young Lions a bit lightly. We seemed to struggle to break Young Lions down, and when we did, we did not take our chances. Adam Swandi’s diving header went just wide, and he then saw his half-volley smack off the post as well, so we did come really close. Problem was, we also looked vulnerable on the counter and we perhaps lacked the control of the game that we had come to expect after two very successful outings against Hougang and Tanjong Pagar with the new formation. But was it due to complacency? It’s of course impossible to tell if the players subconsciously took Young Lions a little easy, or if they were trying to save some energy in the tank, knowing that just a few days later, they would be playing DPMM Brunei. However, one thing that surprised me when the starting lineup was announced was that there was zero rotation – an unchanged team from our big win against Tanjong Pagar. I thought Coach Ranko may have been tempted to switch things up given that we were facing the basement-dwellers, but perhaps his reason for not doing that was precisely so as not to send the message to his players that Young Lions are an “easy” team to beat. In any case, the best lessons to learn are the ones where you didn’t have to pay a price for, and Zharfan’s double-save ensured that we went in at the break goalless, rather than 1 goal down. It was a warning that did not draw any blood, and one that allowed the coaching staff to make some changes at half-time to give us more of an attacking threat. This was also referenced by captain Hariss in his post-match chat with us. Nur Adam’s Increasing Attacking Threat In a first half where we struggled to create as many chances as we usually do, Nur Adam was quite conservative in his play, as he did not look to overlap as much. In this new system, he is part of a back 3 sometimes in build-up, so more of the risk-taking will be taken by Hafiz Nor on the opposite flank. However, in the second half, he was often seen further forward, and it was this that led to our first goal, as he ran deep into enemy territory (see red arrow) to support Adam Swandi. He took the ball in his stride, and his cutback created chaos as first Shawal put it on target, and then the deflection fell kindly for Maxime to coolly side-foot into the back of the net. This was a run that was not made as often in the first half, so credit both to Nur Adam, but also Coach Ranko for making this tactical change. Although he did not pick up an assist in this game, this chance he created eventually led to the opening of the floodgates. This, coupled with the fact that he has 2 assists from his previous 2 games, means that we are finally seeing Nur Adam play into some real form, and what a crucial time for him to be doing it. In our post-match chat with him, he mentioned that he would like to get a goal soon, but also joked that Maxime always tells him to stay back and let him attack alone. Which brings us to the next point… Magnificent Maxime How many superlatives can you throw at this beautiful Belgian man? It is utterly insane the numbers he’s putting up. He’s the Nikola Jokic of the Singapore Premier League. You stop him from scoring, he’s gonna get an assist. You stop him from passing, he’s gonna get a goal. What can you do as a defender? Last night was his first hattrick for the Sailors – a stat that made me stop and think in disbelief. It just seems so crazy that he hasn’t scored a hattrick yet because we have seen him score goal after goal. The reason for that is he tends to score in twos rather than threes. The club also announced that with his hattrick, he is now the all-time top-scoring Sailor. Just amazing. But it’s not just goals is it? Why I called him the Nikola Jokic of our league is because he isn’t afraid to share the ball as well. How often do you see this in any league? He is on course to reach more than 20 goals and 20 assists in the same season – a very difficult achievement. The club also put out some other stats – Maxime’s 18-goal haul is his best-ever goal tally in a season, beating his previous record of 17 goals with Club Brugge in the 2012/2013 season. Friday’s three-goal haul

1-7 on 1 July. Can’t make this up. We mentioned in the preview that Tanjong Pagar United (TPU) would be there for the taking because of Shakir’s suspension, and how important he was both to TPU’s attack and defence. What came as a bit of a surprise was that Blake Ricciuto was also suspended – which is strange cos the SPL website listed him as only having accumulated 3 yellow cards. For those not super clear about the rules, you need to accumulate 4 yellow cards before being suspended for a game – this is why Shakir was suspended. I guess the SPL website made an error. If anyone knows any other reason why Blake was suspended, drop us a DM! An Intense Start – Pressing TPU High Had I known that Blake was also suspended for this game, I would have been even more bullish in my appraisal of the Sailors’ chances of getting a handsome victory. TPU without Blake and without Shakir – that’s basically half their attacking threat gone. The Sailors definitely smelled blood, and in the first few minutes alone, the pressing was relentless in TPU’s defensive third, which led to chances for us. As early as 9 seconds in, Hami wins the ball here after a soft pass is played into midfield. From here, Maxime is presented with a great chance he should have scored from – we would have been ahead in 14 seconds. At the 1min 31 second mark, look at how intent on pressing TPU we are here, and how high we are. This was a pattern that continued, and ultimately resulted in Anu doing superbly well on the 9min mark to intercept a slow pass and his touch broke for Lestienne to slam home right-footed. It was a superb reward for an absolutely dominant first 10min of the game where we smelled blood, and kept going for it. Anu was very impressive all game, and his intensity was matched by his teammates. The rest of the game was much the same – as we looked to keep up the intensity and press TPU high. Instead of breaking down every single goal, I will try to summarise some of my thoughts. Local Boys Stepping Up Back in the preview to the Albirex game, I wrote about how the team was a little too reliant on Diego Lopes and Maxime Lestienne. Here is an excerpt of what I wrote – In the last 2 games, you have seen how Adam Swandi’s advanced position has allowed us to reap dividends. 2 goals, 1 assist against Hougang, and now 2 assists against Tanjong Pagar. 5 goal contributions in 2 games is not to be sniffed at. Perhaps another stat that has gone unnoticed is that of the 10 goals scored in the last 2 games, 7 were scored by our local boys. Of the 9 assists recorded (winning a penalty doesn’t count as an assist), 7 were from our local boys. No prizes for guessing who supplied the remaining 2 assists. This is vital for our play to progress, and for us to become harder to neutralise. The Sailors are not a two-man team, and there is no excuse for us to be reliant on the magic of two players to bail us out. Lionel Tan and Hami Syahin also got their first goals of the season. Much, much needed. It is funny because we interviewed Lionel last week after the Hougang game and jokingly talked about his goalscoring threat – he said he hoped to contribute his first goal for the team soon. Bang, right on cue, 7 days later, he delivered. We spoke to Hami after the game too and he shared with us about how he was so scared that his one and only goal was going to be chalked off by the VAR. It was funny but ultimately he got the goal. More to come from the both of them, hopefully! Oh, and shout-out to Nur Adam Abdullah for handling his defensive duties well and still being able to get 2 assists in 2 games! Diego Lopes – The Secondary Assister If you look purely at goals and assists, Diego’s influence this season has not been as obvious as Maxime Lestienne’s. Of course, it looks like I am being incredibly harsh here considering that Maxime is top of both goals and assists in the charts. Diego isn’t far behind when it comes to assists, but in terms of goalscoring threat, there is no doubt that Maxime is the man who you usually count on to deliver. But this ignores something else that Diego is very good at. Much like Ozil and Hleb (yes, my Arsenal upbringing is really coming through here), Diego is the king of the “pass-before-the-assist“. As seen above in a chart ranking players on the “secondary assist” (an ice hockey concept crediting the player who made a pass for the assister to pass to the goalscorer), he has done it 7 times this season. The last memorable one was his outside-of-the-boot flick to set Maxime free down the left wing to cross for Abdul Rasaq in the 3-2 victory over Albirex – it was truly sumptuous. His through pass on Saturday night to allow the Maxime-Rasaq combination to happen again was no less delicious, and it was played with such precision that it allowed Maxime to cross the ball without breaking stride, and of course, Abdul Rasaq was there to finish. The secondary assist is sometimes harder to accomplish than the actual assist itself. Especially against packed defences, sometimes unlocking the defence by putting a player in behind the back four/five is more difficult because it requires precision and bravery to make the pass between covering defenders. If you look at the situation below, it is not immediately apparent what Diego should do, but he has the presence of mind to spot Maxime’s run and weight the pass perfectly (too much power and it allows the keeper

All season long, we’ve been asking for a solid defensive performance, and more control in our games, and that is exactly what we got on Sunday night. It was a long day for some of us in the Crew because we had to get up bright and early at 7am to go down to Mattar Road for the Tasek Sailors charity event. We will be writing a fuller article on that sometime soon to talk abit more about the day and of course, the wonderful initiative that is the Tasek Sailors. In any case, we played in the corporate tournament and managed to advance to the Quarter-Finals, but were then knocked out by a solitary goal. Congrats to Deloitte for winning the tournament! So after a full day of baking in the sun, we made the trip down to Bishan Stadium, a little tired and hoping the team would give us all a lift with their performance. They did that, and in very handsome fashion – just look at this. Hougang only managed 1 shot all game, and when you look at the shots chart, it further highlights our dominance. Nazrul Nazari’s shot (in red) from far out was their only attempt all night, and it was comfortable for Zharfan. There was another near-miss when old boy Gabriel Quak did excellently to beat Nur Adam on the right flank and put in a decent cross, which was eventually deflected onto the post by Super, but other than that, Hougang hardly troubled us at all. Adam Swandi’s advanced position Unlike in many games this season where Adam Swandi was played at the base of midfield alongside Hami Syahin, this game saw Adam operate much further forward, in line with Maxime and Diego. There was very fluid interchanging of positions between the three of them, and Hougang struggled to cope. When we spoke to Lionel Tan after the game, he also had very nice things to say about Adam Swandi playing higher up the field. Of course, the results don’t lie. Adam had two goals, and an assist, and if not for the crossbar, would have had a hattrick. Adam doesn’t get many goals – even when he was an integral part of Albirex’s title-winning squad in 2018 (he clinched Young Player of the Year as they went unbeaten all season), he only scored 4 goals in all competitions. In some of our earlier posts, we had also addressed the squad being a little reliant on Maxime and Diego. It is thus heartening to see different players step up. In this game, we scored 3 goals, and only one had involvement from Maxime / Diego, with Maxime picking up the assist for the 3rd goal. I will leave the detailed tactical analysis to Zach – hopefully he can explain in a little more detail why it worked so well. I can see why Adam Swandi was deployed deep, because his confidence on the ball could help us to get out of tight areas and hold the ball and make us a bit more press-resistant, but it was definitely refreshing and nice to see him trying more stuff on the ball as a direct consequence of him being in an advanced position. Long may this continue. Clean Sheet + Magnificent Anu It was just our 4th clean sheet of the season, after 15 games played. It was a well-deserved one, and I think a lot of credit goes not just to the back 4, but also to Anu, who once again had a great match in the middle of the park. He continued his good form from the games he played for the national team during the international break, and was constantly snapping into challenges, and always in the right place to break up any attack from Hougang. Hougang’s talisman Kiki Krajcek had a very rare off-day, and alot of credit for that has to go to Anu. On top of doing his defensive duties, he used the ball well. In particular, there was a moment in the first half where he played such a good dink into the box for Diego to create a chance for Maxime, which Maxime uncharacteristically wasted. If you look at Anu on the ball here, there really isn’t much on for him, and I thought he may have gone for the slightly easier ball over to the right hand side of the pitch where Hafiz Nor was in space – but he proved me wrong and played it over the top for Diego. In a match where our opponents were content to sit back – it was important for Anu to be a little more ambitious. No Coach Risto I did say in the preview that I was a little apprehensive. I think sacking a coach mid-season will do that for your nerves. However, I think this was the perfect performance to help ease some of those nerves. I hope the players and fans are not getting carried away – after all last season’s first game after Coach Kim left saw us beat Young Lions 10-1 in a record-breaking victory. Also, Hougang were really there for the taking, and for large periods of the game, it felt like a training exercise of attack v defence. The fact that Hougang missed both Shahdan and Zulfahmi in midfield probably contributed to that. However, taking away all of Hougang’s flaws on the day, I think there was a lot more structure and intention in the way we built from the back – something that I hope once again that Zach will help to explain in further detail. To my relatively untrained eye (compared to Zach), it looked like the centrebacks were pushed a bit wider in the build-up, the full-backs held the width in attack almost like wingers, while Lestienne, Diego, and Adam Swandi were allowed a nice little platform in the middle of the pitch to combine with each other to devastating effect. It was a very controlled

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

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

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