Lion City Sailors have room for improvement despite 3-0 win over Tanjong Pagar

SINGAPORE – Despite returning to winning ways with a 3-0 victory over Tanjong Pagar United on July 7, the Lion City Sailors also showed plenty of room for improvement.

The win at Bishan Stadium helped them return to the top of the Singapore Premier League on goal difference, level on 16 points with BG Tampines Rovers, who beat the Young Lions 2-0 on July 6.

While they got the job done, bouncing back from a disappointing 1-1 draw against Geylang International on June 28, the football that the title hopefuls displayed was uninspiring at times against a Jaguars side who have largely struggled this season and remain seventh in the nine-team table after the match.

But coach Aleksandar Rankovic, who cut a frustrated figure along the touchline, defended his team, insisting that the result is what matters now.

He said: “It’s a good result, we got three points and did what we had to do, so I’m happy. If you think that we’re going to win every game 7-0 or 8-0, that’s comedy.”

Though the Sailors are still six games into a long 2024-25 season that will stretch to May 2025, there were worrying signs. After all, according to Transfermarkt, the Sailors squad’s market value (€6.73 million or S$9.9 million) was more than five times that of Tanjong Pagar (€1.22 million).

They took the lead within two minutes, after Shawal Anuar pounced on a defensive error before laying the ball for Maxime Lestienne, who curled his shot past Prathip Ekamparam.

But the home side, without injured Dutch midfielder Bart Ramselaar, created only half-chances after that and could not apply the finishing touch.

That changed in the 41st minute when Adam Swandi, in his second start of the season, slipped the ball through to Lestienne before arriving in the box to finish the move with a well-struck volley.

The Sailors almost extended their advantage five minutes into the second half when Lestienne’s free kick crashed off the bar and Christopher van Huizen’s effort was parried away by Prathip.

The Jaguars, who had Frenchman Salif Cisse, Japanese Shodai Nishikawa and Timor Leste’s Zenivio Mota in attack, failed to convert their chances.

The hosts sealed the win when Bailey Wright headed home from Adam’s corner in the 84th minute.

Adam admitted that their performance was still not up to standard. “Everyone would agree that it wasn’t an easy 3-0 win,” he said. “The game went different ways and it was a hard-fought win, most importantly we kept the clean sheet and scored three goals... In the end, the result is what matters most, but performance-wise we all can agree things could’ve been better.”

He added that they have to work on converting their chances, and fine-tuning “so we can bring our ‘A’ game”.

“Something that we have to work on is to be more clinical. At the highest level, we’ll get fewer chances, so we’ll have to convert all our chances.”

While it was not the result that Tanjong Pagar were after, coach Hasrin Jailani noted that they “tried until the very last minute”. He said: “The pleasing part was possession-wise... creating chances, we did that but just couldn’t put the ball in the back of the net. It’s always good to see progress there.”

When asked what the Sailors could improve on, Rankovic said: “Nothing. We’re where we need to be, so everything is going according to plan.”

Analysis

The Sailors looked far from their best, with their final passes and decision-making letting them down. They failed to carve open a stoic Tanjong Pagar defence, and relied on creating chances down both flanks which failed on countless occasions.