Singapore Premier League • May 23, 2014

Protectors Draw Closer To Summit

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Written By: Kenneth Ho

Home United stormed to a 4-1 win over Geylang International at Bedok Stadium on Thursday evening as they pulled closer to league leaders Brunei DPMM.

With DPMM losing 1-0 to Warriors FC in the other match of the night, Home are now seven points adrift of the Bruneian side.

A brace by Kwon Dakyung and Fazrul Nawaz was enough to cancel out Kento Fukuda’s opener as well as bring Home to victory.

The opening 15 minutes of the game was scrappy as both sides struggled to string together passes.

However, it then burst into life as Geylang grabbed the lead through the first real chance of the game, with Kento scoring his second goal of the season when he finished off Aliff Shafaein’s cross from close range in the 16th minute.

That goal seemed to spur the Protectors into action, as Lee Kwan Woo began to take charge of proceedings and troubled the Geylang defence with his shots and passes.

After troubling Geylang goalkeeper Joey Sim with a scorcher in the 19th minute, Lee then forced the custodian into another save with a curling free kick minutes later.

With Home fully concentrated on attacking, Geylang should have taken advantage when space started to open up for them, but they instead missed two gilt-edged chances.

Ridhuan Muuhammad first saw his shot from seven yards out parried away by Home goalkeeper Shahril Jantan before Felice saw his header at the far post strike the outside of the woodwork.

The Eagles were made to rue those misses as Kwon rose the highest to head in the equaliser from Lee’s corner kick on the half-hour mark.

The Protectors then took the lead with a scorcher from distance by Fazrul beating Sim in the 37th minute.

To set the visitors on the ascendency, Kwon then scored his second goal of the night as he headed in from close range via another of Lee’s corner in the 41st minute.

The game could have been sealed right after the restart when Yasir Hanapi went on a brilliant run down the right before unleashing a volley at goal but the Eagle’s goalkeeper did well to palm away the shot.

Geylang came close to reducing the deficit through Felice when the Argentinian’s shot swerved towards the top corner only for it to come off the woodwork on the hour mark.

There were other half chances thereafter, but Geylang were unable to fully test Shahril as full time loomed.

Fazrul provided the icing on the cake as he grabbed another goal just a minute before the end of regulation time as Sim contrived to spill the ball into his path and allowed the striker an easy tap-in.

With this result, Geylang have now gone a three-match losing streak as they remained in the ninth position of the league.