Written by: Phoon Jia Hui

Courts Young Lions notched their second win on the trot as they stunned Home United 3-0 at Bishan Stadium on Thursday evening, thanks to second-half strikes from Shameer Aziq, Sahil Suhaimi and Jordan Webb.

Young Lions coach Aide Iskandar was delighted with the result as he lauded his players, but hopes they will be more consistent.

“All I can say is that I’m proud of the boys’ performance tonight. They showed a lot of self-belief, a lot of confidence and [I could see] they really wanted to have these three points,” he said.

“I thought Shameer gave us some width on the flanks and Syazwan did really well as he saved a lot of shots from Home United. We must also give credit to players like Amirul Adli, he’s only 18 and he’s put up a good performance against [the likes of] Fazrul [Nawaz] and Indra [Sahdan].

“Also, not forgetting Afiq Noor who’s managed to get only a few games this season due to NS commitments. I think these are the guys are the unsung heroes for us, it’s easy to give credit to those who scored but we must also give credit for the players who did their best to keep the lead. Overall, it was a great performance from the team.

“I think the most important thing for this group of players will be consistency and I do hope they can repeat the same performance [in the upcoming games].”

The result saw the developmental team leapfrog Woodlands Wellington into tenth on goal difference and the former Singapore international was optimistic about his side’s chances of moving further up the table.

“We know that we are capable to climb better than what we were last year because the team first of all, had the experience last year,” Aide noted.

“This year, we had the addition of Jordan and I thought he played well tonight and scored one goal tonight. Of course, I’m happy to see that we have leapfrogged Woodlands but there’s still five games to go and hopefully we can end the season strong and see if we can catch up with Tanjong Pagar or even Geylang International.”

Home coach Lee Lim Saeng meanwhile was clearly downcast after the game, and admitted Yasir Hanapi’s sending-off did not help.

“After Yasir is sent off, I think it was very difficult to play our plan,” he lamented.

“After we conceded the first goal, we needed to score but unfortunately we could not score that’s why we lost. As head coach I feel sorry to the club.

“I think we were ten men against eleven men and it’s not easy in such a situation. That’s why we struggled in the second-half, we also couldn’t score even though we had chances. We focused too much on our attack and we got punished as a result.”

Although the Protectors trail leaders Brunei DPMM by five points going into the ‘half-round’ which commences next month, Lee remained hopeful.

“I think tonight we needed to get three points and we failed. Anyway we still have five more games from now so I hope we get three points for all matches, if possible. We cannot give up, we will try our best,” he said.