Albirex Niigata (S) vs Sengkang Punggol: Pre-match

Hours before our inaugural venture to the Jurong East Stadium as the Dolphins play one of the teams we had beaten (albeit luckily) in pre-season, Albirex Niigata (S).

Fresh off from the televised defeat on Friday which saw plenty of netizens (and some fair weather “Sengkang fans”) to claim that Sengkang is straight candidate for the cellar spot again…yada, yada, yada…
But the truth is the team really lacks cohesion and understanding on the pitch on Friday and we surely need more time (especially competitively) to gel.
The unsightly squabbling due to lack of chemistry between Anthony and Yamamoto last Friday has to stop while we have to see leaders emerging from all corners.
The latter stages of that defeat to Gombak United saw Indra taking more initiative to fall back and made use of his natural talent to control the ball and a flash of his old pace sure will bring us hope.
His strike partner, Anthony Bahadur had a torrid introduction to local football… Muted by the defensive pairing of Bah Mamadou & Odion Obadin, our targetman had to show much improvement if he wants to open account against Albirex defensive lynchpin Takashi Uchida who has shrugged off an injury which kept him out of that opening defeat to Geylang when he was badly missed.
Murphy Wiredu, too had a subdued evening having to play out of position on the right wing had a couple of chances but seemingly took too long to conjure a meaningful shot at goal.

From the friendly game at Hougang Stadium, we can see that head coach Naoki Naruo wants their players to clamp down their opposition by numbers; and with their fitness and finesse, the White Swans did so with ease in that friendly game especially in the midfield.
The center of the midfield has been our soft belly since pre-season and surely would be exploited by a team eventually, Gombak didn’t really did so though they had no real need to with the quality up front.
Yamamoto’s natural position is the center of defense and so far is not convincing as the defensive midfielder while despite his enthusiasim, Abdoulaye looks too flimsy to deliver on his own for the entire game.

The Japanese loves to attack from their surging fullbacks, with Keisuke Ogawa one to watch out for and their speedy forwards in Adachihara and the returning Akira Takase might be much a problem for our elder statesmen at the rear as Obatola had shown.

We surely have the capacity and ability to steal a win against the young Albirex side at their own home turf but a decent goal-scoring draw ain’t such a bad result for me.
The opportunity to cheer heartily for a goal scored by our team on away fixture without losing is still elusive for us and something we would surely cherished…