Home United vs Brunei DPMM FC

(25 May, Thursday, 7.30pm, Bishan Stadium)

Written by: Rashid Sulaiman

Home United head coach Aidil Sharin has warned his team against complacency when they take on eighth-placed Brunei DPMM in the 2017 Great Eastern-Hyundai S.League at the Bishan Stadium on Thursday night.

Despite being title challengers in recent years, the Bruneians are currently at the wrong end of the table with only one win to their name after the first round of matches.

The Protectors are meanwhile second in the league’s standing on 20 points, while the Wasps are second from bottom with only four points.

Despite the situation favouring Aidil’s charges, he has warned that it will not be all smooth sailing for his club as their opponents will be eager to get back to winning form.

“There is no easy match this season,” said Aidil who will be without the services of Aqhari Abdullah and Sirina Camara for this match due to injury. “Even against Young Lions, we found it a tough match.

“It won’t be easy to win as the opponent will come into the match with a winning mentality to get their season back on track. But our mindset remains the same, we go for the three points.”

With an AFC Cup Zonal Semi-Finals against Global Cebu FC less than a week after this tie, Aidil is urging his team to be clinical in front of goal and kill off their opponents early in the game.

“It will be great if we can get results early on so that we can rest some players in the latter stages of the match,” the former Singapore international added.

“Looking at our schedule, it has been hectic in the last few weeks. I have to balance it out and hoping for a good outcome in order to make some changes to the team.”

While confidence is sky-high in the Home camp, things have not gone for DPMM as the 2015 S.League champions find themselves in unfamiliar territory.

“We are in a position we have never been at since I’ve been here for the past four seasons,” Kean admitted. “I always say you don’t become a bad team overnight. We have had very few changes to the squad but the nucleus remained the same.

“It is all about confidence and what I stressed to the players is to take what we trained into games. To turn things around we need to bring the quality here in training into games,” added the DPMM head coach who will be missing goalkeeper Wardun Yussof due to a thumb injury.

“Everything won’t always go our way. We just need to play with confidence and start games better.”

Despite boasting top scorer from last season, Rafael Ramazotti, the team have only managed to score a paltry seven goals in eight games. But Kean is not about to lay blame solely on their strikers.

“It has been difficult for the strikers because they haven’t had many chances,” the former Blackburn Rovers manager lamented.

“We have had few chances because we found it difficult for wing-backs to go forward into the final third. When we win, it is the team and we also lose as a team. It is not down to individuals.”

But Kean is optimistic that a win against the Protectors will signal the start of his team’s revival this season.

“We should have beaten Young Lions as we had enough chances,” he said.

“But it was enough to stop the negative flow which was defeat after defeat but now we can try to start to get the momentum going forward again.

“Spirit and atmosphere at training has been good. We were disappointed not to get three points but at least we still got something from the game – a point and now we can restart the season. Forget the first round and now try to get to the top.”

Suspension: Yura Indera Putra (Brunei DPMM)

Home United – WWLDW

21/05/17 Garena Young Lions 1-2 Home United

16/05/17 Global Cebu FC 2-2 Home United (AFC Cup)

12/05/17 Tampines Rovers 3-2 Home United

02/05/17 Home United 1-0 Balestier Khalsa

28/04/17 Home United 3-0 Geylang International

Brunei DPMM – LLLLD

13/05/15 Garena Young Lions 0-0 Brunei DPMM

28/04/17 Brunei DPMM 0-1 Tampines Rovers

20/04/17 Geylang International 2-0 Brunei DPMM

15/04/17 Brunei DPMM 3-5 Warriors FC

07/04/17 Balestier Khalsa 2-1 Brunei DPMM

Head to Head (S.League)

03/03/17 Brunei DPMM 1-3 Home United

23/09/16 Brunei DPMM 3-1 Home United

19/05/16 Home United 5-0 Brunei DPMM

11/03/16 Brunei DPMM 2-1 Home United

17/10/15 Brunei DPMM 4-4 Home United