Written By: Kenneth Ho

Balestier Khalsa coach Marko Kraljevic stated his belief that Park Kang Jin should be playing in a top-tier league after an inspirational performance by the midfielder helped Balestier Khalsa to a 4-0victory of Courts Young Lions on Sunday evening,

“Park is best player, he is one of the best players,” Kraljevic said, “He will be key if he continue playing like this.”

Kraljevic was surprised to have won the game so easily, and felt that the Young Lions’ lack of experience was the reason for the huge win..

“I was really confident we can win, I trained with them for six weeks, I know they can do it. You can never say sure we are going to win but I saw in training that when they come in tight situations they are willing to work very hard,” Kraljevic said.

“It’s is a problem when you play against young people. When they concede one goal, two goals, they will open up, they will no longer focus,” he said.

Balestier’s marquee signing Goran Ljubojevic marked his official debut with a goal from the spot, and Kraljevic was satisfied with his display.

“Scored a goal, [did his role as a] target man, okay, but I think he can do better,” the Balestier tactician said.

“When a striker is in goal scoring position that is good. If he only scored a goal from penalty, and nothing else, then something is wrong. I think he was two, three times in goal scoring positions.“

Courts Young Lions coach Aide Iskandar felt his side lacked an offensive threat in the game, and cited the reason for this was the absence of several players.

““We missed three key players, we missed Sahil [Suhaimi], we missed Jordan [Webb] and Syazwan [Buhari],” Aide said.

However, the former Singapore international refused to use that as an excuse for his side’s woeful performance, and said he was to blame for the rout.

“I think for me, we got punished by mistakes and we never recovered after the two early goals,” Aide said, “After that we tried to come back but we couldn’t. On the positive side, it’s a good learning process for some of the younger boys.”

“I have to give credit to Balestier. Balestier deserved to win, they took their chances well and they were the better side tonight.

“I don’t want to make any excuses, I fielded the best team possible and it was unfortunate we could not perform to what we expected.

“I will take the blame for tonight’s defeat.”