Pandas In Trouble
Aw Grabs Bargain
Despite having already all but secured safety before the game, Grilled Birds were not about to go it easy against Four Leaf Pandas, and came away with a very credible 5-1 victory at their Panda Enclosure, before a full house of fifty thousand paying spectators. It would thus be a challenging introduction to Division Two for the Ultimate NutsZ successors, who have collected just two wins - if at newbies are newbies and Batok Earthquakes - so far.
It could hardly have gotten worse for young head coach Kwa Jia Ying after he had lost the first six league matches to start the season, and it was probably only his record of successive championships in III.3 that allowed him to keep his position. Monetary support by the board would be modest with the only major reinforcements being Turkish centreback Ufuk Yalçın and Hong Kong veteran defender Lee Youyao for a combined total of some S$3.3 million, with both starting today in a 4-5-1. Swiss playmaker Tristan Masquelier and Japanese national forward hopeful Yoshinori Watanabe would feature too, having scored in their 2-0 upset of Earthquakes last weekend.
There would be no major injury concerns for
Dan Alstani, and it was
Mohd Marzuki Khairul and
Wu Ping De that missed out today, as
Lim An Keng got picked at left wing. There would be some talking-up of
Hwang Teck Fu and
Chad Thach in Alstani's pre-game comments, but the opener arrived through perhaps the most-underappreciated player in the current Birds squad.
Ananda Hettiarachchi seemed to be strolling aimlessly about the tenth minute as
Hisham Zubari advanced cautiously with the ball in his own half, before suddenly bursting into action right as Zubari made his move. The long ball into the Pandas box came seconds later, with Ananda perfectly placed to nick it under Józef Krygiel.
The Pandas would string quite a few extended passing sequences together themselves, and about eleven minutes following
Lim An Keng's header attempt from a good
Genki Nagano, the hosts equalized. Hungarian winger Alex Ónodi had clear space in front of him after an abortive
Phillip Nagata dribble, and he had targets aplenty as his teammates rushed upfield in support. Yoshinori tapped the initial pass back to Ónodi, having no room to turn, and the winger duly placed it nicely for former Brotherhood SG trainee Wang Kwang to score.
Radomil Marcol was displeased at there being nobody tracking Wang's movements, but he would in truth have little to do other than this incident. Four Leaf Pandas had loud encouragement from their fans as they schemed to wear the Birds out, but were ultimately unable to control the flow. Sustained Grilled pressure saw
Lim An Keng make it 2-1 four minutes from the break off a Nagata push, with
Chad Thach then giving Krygiel something to think about, with his terrific - if marginally off-kilter - drive from fifteen yards straight afterwards.
The match thus resumed with Pandas chasing, which they prosecuted semi-convincingly helped by impressive discipline at the back.
Hwang Teck Fu, whose hat-trick from the previous meeting would be brought up by the commentators whenever he received the ball, found himself barely able to even breathe thanks to Yalçın and Lee's close attentions. It fell to
Lim An Keng to try and make the most of his frequent one-on-ones out wide against Finnish wingback Juhamatti Männikkö, but his crosses just weren't accurate enough.
Grilled had better luck after shifting their efforts elsewhere, and their third goal came after old-fashioned grinding away in the centre, in the 67th minute. While Hwang had been well and truly neutralized, his generally occupying two men would leave subtle gaps for the rest, and
Hisham Zubari wrangled his way into one of those after
Chia Kwang Tse's distracting dash across the box.
Hein Thiha Pyae Ko spotted the opening, and Tristan Masquelier couldn't quite cut the square pass out.
It was 4-1 three minutes on as
Ananda Hettiarachchi paid it on with a brilliant first-time loft over to
Chad Thach, who matched its quality with a storming volley that Lee Youyao tried but could not get in the way of. That had Kwa replace the flagging defender with former national U-20 striker Kasey Yeo, with their formation also shifting to a 3-5-2 what with there being little left to lose. With nothing much of note happening for the next nine minutes, Kwa then used his remaining substitutions on bringing George McDonald and Alex Ónodi on.
The Pandas spared little in trying to close the gap, but it proved difficult to switch up their mentality on a whim, and they would spend rather too much time playing it safe at the back. Instead, it would be the Birds to grab a cheap fifth goal after Alstani's triple swap for
Kendell El Khateeb,
Wu Ping De and
Damian Hutter, that had
Aw Keng Chuan swoop in to smash the ball home in added time. Männikkö was practically screaming for support on being badgered by Kendell then, but alas for him, it wasn't forthcoming.
