A New Long Spring
Marc Pujolràs' departure was followed within days by the arrival of gifted Singaporean attacking midfielder
Zhu Changchun, who cost a round S$7 million from Mexican Division Five side TerranS. The 20 year-old already has 14 career goals, including six in the season thus far, and was handed the Number Four jersey that was formerly South Korean international Kim Kyou-Chull's.
"Well, we finally got the local anchor we were looking for." head coach
Han Lik-Tsun beamed. "Zhu is about as good as you can expect a player his age to be. If he develops according to plan, he will be a very scary midfielder, among the best we have ever had, in just two or three seasons - and he will only be twenty-three!"
Zhu's talent was always apparent, even in a soccerid youth setup that included the likes of Tan Keong Meng, who was outstanding when they dumped the Birds out of the Cup a few weeks back. Perhaps as importantly, his demands have not grown to match his skill with the ball, with his weekly salary of just S$40000 a far cry from the nearly five times that which Pujolràs commanded.
Han revealed that Grilled had also followed CharlesCheesePie's midfielder Chow De Choon with interest, but did not make a move as he went for S$7.6 million to II.3 club Blackburn Rovers Fan instead. "It would have been interesting for Chow to reforge his U-20 partnership with Mohd Safri and Ying Lee, but after reviewing his videos, he looked like morphing into a wide player, which is not what we need right now. It also didn't help that he was almost a year older than Zhu, but in any case, we wish him the best of luck."
A final option was another former U-20 national, Ha Enjia, who ended up moving from Norwegian side Real Turmat FK to Turkish outfit kralmilah for S$3.3 million. Han seriously mulled over sorting Grilled's defence for the foreseeable future by adding the 25 year-old former kaijam man, but finally baulked at Ha's wages, and also the fact that Grilled were already quite bottom-heavy.
"We already have Qassem and Jungui in their prime, and two very experienced former internationals." Han said. "And we have quite often been forced to use only one, or even none, of them!"
