Written by: Kenneth Ho

Harimau Muda coach Razip Ismail saw his side suffer another loss in the Great Eastern Yeo’s S.league 2014 season, but he waved off the defeat and claimed this will help in his players’ development.

This was Harimau’s thirteenth loss of the season, as they went down 3-1 to Home United at Bishan Stadium on Tuesday evening

“Development you have to keep on g.oing, actually this level is too high for them but week in week out, they will play good opponents so this will be good for their football,” Razip said.

Insisting that this season’s performance so far has been a huge improvement from the last, Razip went on to lament that his side was slightly naive in their defending at times.

“I think first half we give the opponents from our own mistakes the two goals, again our defending from set pieces were very poor, and in the first half we respected our opponents too much,” Razip explained.

“But in the second half we improved, the only thing is we couldn’t score our second goal.

“Now every game we are scoring goals, but sometimes we need to stop conceding the goals.”

The three goals from Home all came in the first half, and the second saw the Protectors taking the foot off the pedal as their pace slowed down.

However, Home coach Lee Lim Saeng said that this was because his players had played as per his instructions

“After tonight’s match, we also play Hougang on Friday, and it is only two days of recovery, as head coach I have concerns about fatigue but there is no choice, we have to recover as soon as possible,” the South Korean said.

“I ask the players if it was possible, to score early and keep the ball, I intended if possible to spend less energy in order to prepare for the next game.”

The victory coupled with league leaders Brunei DPMM’s loss to Tampines Rovers on the same evening saw Home close the gap on them to one point, but Lee preferred to concentrate on his team’s performance for now.

“I think we should play against them in third round, and there is still three points to fight for, but it is still far. We don’t need to think about them; every match is important for Home United,” he said.