Implacable Buns
Grilled head coach
Hovaness Noubaryan admitted to feeling slightly let down by the outcome. "We should have done better, with our man advantage for most of the match. Ropelearner FC went by the book in their adjustments, we should have pressed them much more strongly."
He would however refuse to lay blame at the door of goalkeeper
Massoud Dob, who was the obvious scapegoat given that four of Ropelearner's goals came from outside the box. "If you watch closely, Dob's positioning was on-point for those strikes, which were just too good. If we're going to ask questions, I'd much rather they go to the outfielders, on why there was so much space available."
With Grilled dropping into the bottom half of the table, a title challenge is already looking far-fetched; Noubaryan refused to read too much into it, however.
"It's very early days. After newbies, I daresay we have a more manageable run of games, and we can re-evaluate our situation after that. And, if you'll excuse me, I have to continue planning for Haha midweek."
There were no such problems for the Farmer Bunnies, who carried on steamrolling their league opponents, with their latest victims being Ang Mohs in flip flops. A rather boring three-nil win made it three wins out of three and eleven goals without reply, which was enough for the Buns to take an early lead atop III.11.
As for the match itself, the visitors got their top opportunity just two minutes in, when Julien Chaboche broke completely clear of
Kwek Yun Jie. The Buns would not commit any further mistakes of anywhere near that magnitude for the rest of the day, and
Morgan Hu would bring calm with his 19th minute goal, before
Enzo Paolo Panzarino and
Abderahim Bentellis took turns getting in on the act.
Cup opponents United Legends FC have likewise gotten three wins out of three in the S-League, but national teamer
Tham Leng Teck - excellent at right wing today - insisted that Buns had no reason to be intimidated. "They're good players, but they're also just men."
Finally, there are rumblings that not all is well at Grilled International, with record signing
Fausto Perono said to have rubbed more than a few of his teammates the wrong way. Team elder
Mohd Kamarul bin Hj Safari had to take the rare step of publicly downplaying the friction.
"It's nothing special, really. Just to sort of thing that happens when a new fellow arrives. We're a friendly bunch here, it blows over quickly."
