Just A Few Things - Selangor Vs. PJ City

Credit: Malaysian Football League

Attacking Dead Ends

As expected, Selangor dominated given how PJ City would usually approach: Sitting deep, absorbing and looking to pounce on the counter attack. However, there is a problem for them to make this effective which we’ll go into later. Back to the Red Giants, the game plan is there. Possession based football, going on the offensive while being direct. But almost everything about their attacks have been dire. If there’s one word to describe Selangor’s performance, it’s ‘sloppy’. Pass after pass, movement after movement would usually hit a dead end and once they do have a chance, it’s usually straight at PJ City keeper Kalamullah Al-Hafiz. According to Sons Of Pitches, Selangor had 67% possession, 15 crosses into the box and 9 shots-on-target, a testament to how frustrating it was for them in the match.

Sandro Da Silva had most of the promising chances with his free-kick deflected into the bar and a low shot that Kalamullah had to dive to stop it as both those chances were late in the first half. Most of Selangor’s attacks came from the wings, but even then the PJ City defence did well to clear the crosses. It didn’t help matters for Selangor that PJ City’s defence did their job throughout the match. But even so, PJ City were there for the taking and this result is unacceptable for a Selangor side who has lofty ambitions. Of all the times for Selangor’s attack to have ‘one of those days’...

Personnel Wanted

Now we go to PJ City. With a 3-5-2 formation, their defence has done their job by staying disciplined & focused while pressing the ball holder to some degree which forced Selangor to go back to square one by passing back to their defence or keeper. But what happens after they clear their lines? It was obvious what they wanted to do. But they’re missing a piece of the puzzle up front. Long gone were the days of Kpah Sherman & L’Imam Seydi bossing the counter-attacks that helped PJ City (Known as MISC-MIFA back then) to Super League promotion. They are struggling to replicate that partnership to run at the defence and tonight was no different.

Sure Anawin Jujeen has the pace, but he was not meant to be a centre-forward. So it was a little strange that Kogileswaran Raj didn’t start to partner Washington. PJ City were also clearly missing creative figures such as Bae Beom-geun to quickly launch the counter attacks to the front two. PJ City only had one notable attack and that was late into the match. Other than that, PJ City never looked like they were going to give Selangor trouble at all.

Where’s Khyril?
The last time these two sides met, a certain winger who was on a redemption arc was the star player of that night when Selangor emerged 3-0 winners over a second-string PJ City side. This time around though, Khyril Muhymeen was not in the matchday squad and given how it turned out in the end, maybe he would’ve helped down on the wings as the inside forward. He would’ve provided the necessary back-up as his knack for goal scoring and lurking around the final third would’ve really kept the PJ City defence guessing by keeping up to Selangor’s attacking rhythm. But it really begs the question: where is Khyril?

So What Now?

Given the reactions on Twitter, this is going to be a hot take. This isn’t entirely B. Sathianthan’s fault. Selangor actually did what was asked to do and they did dominate the entire match. But as stated earlier, the team was wasteful and sadly the subs didn’t make the impact Sathia wanted despite Wan Zack Haikal & Azrin Afiq trying to make something happen. Though something to point out that strangely, Sean Eugene Selvaraj wasn’t bought on with ten minutes to go considering how the game went and ended.

But the result obviously did not help everyone in the Selangor camp given the position they were in heading into this match, especially for Sathianathan considering there have been whispers of a German World Cup winner of 1990 taking over the helm of the Red Giants for next year.

Selangor now find themselves closer to the relegation zone rather than the top three places. The way they did attack does give some positive outlook, but again, the execution of it was poor. They need to pick themselves up quickly as there are only six games to go. Same can be said about PJ City, now standing at the border of the relegation zone by goal difference after Sabah’s terrible 4-0 loss at Terengganu. To summarize, both sides need as many wins as possible to achieve their ambitions for this season and they need to pull out all the stops to do so.