Written By: Kenneth Ho

The 2-1 defeat to Albirex Niigata on Thursday evening at Jalan Besar Stadium was the Courts Young Lions’ sixth loss of the season after seven games, but coach Aide Iskandar was not about to hit the panic button.

Instead Aide once again chose to highlight that his boys were still learning the ropes of playing in a professional setting.

“In general I was quite happy with the way they approached this game, but again the goals we conceded we could have avoided, “ Aide said.

“These boys are still young, but I wouldn’t want to use this excuse a lot, and I think they need to step up, they need to learn.“

Aide also managed to find some positives despite the defeat, especially after the lack of players forced him to start with Sherif El Masri playing in the left-back role, as opposed to his natural position on the flanks.

“To be fair, we played a quality team you know, Albirex is a good team so it is a good experience for this side, “ Aide added.

“The second goal really killed us because we were trying to search for the equaliser, but I got to give credit to the boys for their last ten minutes, they pushed, they wanted to get a goal and we got one but unfortunately we couldn’t get the second one. “

Albirex coach Tatsuyuki Okuyama was unsurprisingly dissatisfied with the victory, after seeing his team squander some gilt-edged chances to widen their lead.

Tatsuyuki has repeatedly lamented after matches about his squad’s profligacy in front of goal and tonight was no different for the coach.

“I am happy but I cannot be happy, because we couldn’t score enough, “ Tatsuyuki said.

“Young Lions are a very good team, we knew it was very difficult to defend against their offense so we should have scored more to beat them.“

The Japanese also warned his side that they could not afford to rest on their laurels, despite earning three wins from their last four games.

“I am satisfied with the recent results, we are having very tough games but we have a very young team so we have to improve through the season,“ he added.