As Grilled welcomed their third teenager, 17 year-old English lad Tapesh Chowdhury, into their squad, murmurs of discontent could be heard from local youth academy trainees, who feared rightly or wrongly that their odds of making it into the senior side were reduced yet again. This was not helped by Chowdhury's rather remote personality, and supposedly Ciro Penati has made few friends with his selfish play in a trial match. Sándor Deme had been the only of the three to fit in off the bat.

On the footballing side though, scouts rated Chowdhury as well worth the S$100000 paid to China's Flamedragon for him. He had already scored his first professional goal against Chongqing United, after creating one for German striker Claus Mergentheim in the same match. "He's a natural on the ball and has as good a first touch as I've seen on any player his age." ex-Grilled coach Luis Alcántara commented. "Also, he has the years ahead of him to try and make it into the first team."

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