Dragons' Turn Over
Chitre Snakes Two
With the Year of the Dragon coming to a close, the Birds would fittingly record a 4-2 home win over Singapore Red Dragons, to pull three points clear at the top of the table. Robert Veerma and Roman Eloidze, so dominant in the last meeting between the sides, would feature again for the visitors, but to reduced effect. Instead, it was
Gandhik Chitre who picked up where he left off last season, with his 49th and 50th career goals for Grilled.
Mohd Marzuki Khairul would be consigned to the bench for the Birds as
Tian Yonghang opted for the extra insurance of
Aw Keng Chuan in front of defence, as
Hwang Teck Fu started in central midfield and
Paulino Trindade on the left. Against this, the Dragons chose a 4-5-1, as they had in their win last season. Veerma stationed himself in the middle of attack with Parmeet Naik pulled back into defence with Artem Lobashov taking over his old spot, as Seah Yeng Hock found himself in the dugout once more.
All of Aw's defensive experience did him little good against Eloidze's deceptive turn of pace, still barely diminished at 33 years of age. A neat first touch was all it took for the Georgian to nose ahead of Aw if out wide, and any relief that he was not headed into the penalty box would be wiped out when he expertly slipped Badico Gaudério inside.
Raúl Himadas came in with the sliding block, but not before Gaudério had already pegged it in off the near post.
The travelling fans rose in an undulating red wave at that, but their joy was short-lived as Grilled Birds claimed control on disciplined passing. Under the watchful eye of Tian, they would seek to impose their will via high-percentage short passing, and plenty of the pressure would be relieved when
Gandhik Chitre made it one-all in the 14th minute. The four-man backline meant that neither Naik nor Ramasike were automatically responsible for shackling Chitre, an oversight that they soon regretted.
Although the Dragons would learn that lesson by the time Chitre received
Lim An Keng's pass after 20 minutes, the forward proved well capable of beating his man with his consummate ball control, and he made former national youth player Parmeet Naik look like an amateur with a simple yet devastating drag-back into a double turn.
Hwang Teck Fu upped it to 3-1 six minutes later as Grilled tightened the vise, and only exceptional shot-stopping by Tsjitse Westerlaan kept Lim out in the 36th minute.
Singapore Red Dragons were still in it, given Veerma's ability to conjure goals from next to nothing, but their odds would only worsen after a freak accident forced Ramasike to go off with a jarred wrist. Russian Number Two Dmitriy Ryaboshapko entered, and he could not quite recreate the understanding that Ramasike had with Naik - complicating the Dragons' efforts to effectively play their way out of defence.
Tian knew well how dangerous a two-goal cushion could be, but putting their visitors away proved more difficult that it had seemed after Hwang's goal. The Dragons' backline would handle Grilled's increasingly-repetitive patterns increasingly easily, leading the Birds to resort to peppering Westerlaan's goal from deep.
Hwang Teck Fu had a cracking effort from over thirty yards veer wide at the last second in the 61st minute, to the great disappointment of the Grilled diehards behind the goal.
Eager to secure the fourth goal, Tian took Aw off for a bouncing
Mohd Marzuki Khairul with fifteen minutes left, a decision that could be said to have backfired immediately. Grilled threw rather too much into the free-kick that Ha lifted into the box, and although
Gandhik Chitre teased a hat-trick with his latch-on, it would be the Dragons to reduce to 3-2 in the end as Peh Da Kong broke up the right wing with none left to oppose him.
That setback would be rectified just three minutes later, however, as the Dragons too fell prey to impatience. Finally throwing men forward with time against them, they would be carved open after their admittedly threatening attack was repelled, and captain Csaba Báthory-Bozó could do nothing but topple
Brian Reddy from behind, as the winger burst into their box.
Raúl Himadas tapped the penalty home easily enough after Westerlaan moved too early, but Reddy would then be carded for his excessive celebrations, inappropriately directed at the opposition fans.