Written by: Muhammad Yazid

Tanjong Pagar United eked out a narrow 1-0 win over Woodlands Wellington at Queenstown Stadium on Wednesday evening.

Monsef Zerka struck the only goal of the game in the second half to award his side a second consecutive win.

Coming into the game after a comfortable 3-1 win over Courts Young Lions, all the Jaguars needed was maximum points to make sure they still could overtake Geylang International and reach eighth place in Tier Two.

The first half was pretty balanced as both sides had their own chances but none were good enough to find the opener.

Woodlands were the first to have a scoring opportunity in the game as Moon Soon Ho skied his effort high from eight yards after being set free by Stefan Milojevic.

The Jaguars then created three chances through Firdaus Idros, Kamel Ramdani and Zerka.

Firdaus’ header off a corner missed the post by just a whisker before Ramdani and Zerka saw their attempts sail over the bar and saved by Ahmadulhaq Che Omar respectively.

The final few minutes of the first half and the opening second half was all Woodlands though as the Jaguars suddenly seemed to lose steam.

Fadhil Noh’s left-footed shot-cum-cross forced Aurelien Herisson to quickly cover his near post with a low save before Goh Swee Swee and Moon Soon Ho also failed to find the back of the net with poor attempts.

Tanjong Pagar then drew first blood in the 58th minute through Zerka.

Prime league starlet Afiq Tan saw Ahmadulhaq off his line and went for goal with a deflected shot which was going wide, but Zerka was at the right place at the right time to just poke the ball into an empty net.

Things got worse for the Rams as they were reduced to ten men after captain Shahril Alias received a straight red card for bringing down Zerka who was on goal.

Patrick Vallee’s side almost doubled their lead and killed the game off but Zulkarnain Malik was ever-reliable in heading the ball off the line.

The extra-man advantage worked for Tanjong Pagar, as they confidently kept possession and stoke the ball around, in search of a second goal to kill off their opponents.

But nothing went their way as they were denied twice thanks to a double-save from Ahmadulhaq, who denied Sebastien Etiemble twice late in the game.