Smooth Sailing Still
Second Half Beaching
The Birds secured second place in the league with today's 4-1 away win against Blacksail Team, an entirely acceptable position to be in, as
Tian Yonghang pursues his near-total retrofitting of the squad. This saw
Chad Thach make his full debut alongside
Aw Keng Chuan in midfield, with only
Teo Chuan Yong left to guide them through in that department; this proved to be more than sufficient against the hosts, fortunately, and
Abd Hadi Taib Mazhud returned to scoring form with a good brace.
Now, Blacksail Team were hardly that easy pickings themselves, as seen by their upset of fourth-placed Moeinsingapore last Sunday, in which Polish midfielder Jan Markiewicz answered Chris Ma twice, leading into Javier Vázquez's dramatic injury-time winner. Both were involved here too, as Chilean head coach José Antonio Siglic very understandably went with an unchanged XI, with much resting on captain Martin MacGuigan's ability to coordinate it all from the middle.
Well, they had definitely improved from a rocky start to their campaign; after losing their first three league fixtures conceding at least four goals without reply, they have now let in two or fewer in the last seven, including two victories and three draws. Their scoring problem continues to plague them, however, with neither starting forwards in Moisés Romano or Camilo Chía having even gotten started yet.
This had to be trouble against a Grilled team still entirely capable of creating chances, as in the tenth minute, when
Chad Thach bravely rode MacGuigan's challenge and got his pass off, before crumpling to the grass clutching his calf.
Moey Xin Seng played on, and for good reason as it turned out, with
Chan Ze Han making his move behind Vázquez, as the defender chose a bad moment to stay put. That sold goalkeeper Georgi Koychev out entirely, as Chan made it 1-0.
Blacksail tightened up after this, and actually largely matched their visitors for the next twenty minutes, helped by a commitment to man-to-man marking at all positions. Such pressure would be especially effective against Grilled's inexperienced midfielders, and Russian playmaker Vadim Kushakov would eventually unlock the defence after some rapid shuffling of the ball between himself and several teammates. Kurt-Werner Meisner had been waiting on the left, and would nip in to sidefoot Romano's assist beyond
Manuel Vadalà's too-slow dive.
Unfortunately for the home supporters, the equalizer only led to the Birds thumping three past Koychev, in the next three minutes. The Blacksail players appeared to have let that goal get in their heads, and there would be no discernable gameplan as Grilled mounted an assault from the restart. Too many of their players appeared to be setting themselves up for the counter, and by the time they attempted to react to the Birds' steady advance, it was too late. Abd Hadi took Raúl Leoz on, and once he avoided getting sandwiched by Cristian Scarlat, he had to score; Two-one, Grilled.
Blacksail Team hadn't learnt their lesson, it seemed, and they would suffer a similar fate on the next play, if with Grilled first absorbing their initial optimistic push.
Moey Xin Seng converted that one. By the time Siglic and MacGuigan knocked some sense into their players, it would be four for the Birds, with Abd Hadi cunningly kicking off as quickly as he could get away with - and polishing it off himself seconds later.
In comparison, while Grilled controlled the second half with Blacksail in full defensive mode, they would never quite recreate such easy pickings. There would be a lot of posturing around Blacksail's penalty area especially early on, and
Bhavya Panigrahi would unleash two respectable efforts from direct free-kicks, but neither was ultimately on target.
The spate of misses would continue, with Moey passing up a golden opportunity to extend his Golden Boot lead in the 68th minute, when he put too little pace on the ball with Koychev helplessly grounded after stopping a deflection from getting past him;
Douglas Carapaica would disappointingly then thump it well over, and the Birds would thereafter keep mostly to themselves, with
Lim An Keng and
Chia Kwang Tse debuting together in the 89th minute.
