Only a win will suffice for Rhinos
Published on: Tuesday, August 04, 2015
Kota Kinabalu: Nothing but three points will do for Sabah Rhinos as they take on Kuantan FA in the Premier League match at the Darul Makmur Stadium tonight (Tuesday).Mike Mulvey's boys must respond to the humiliating 3-0 defeat to SPA Putrajaya last Friday if they want to ensure they can still give themselves every possible chance of a last ditch attempt for a promotion push.Aspirations of a top two finish look something of a pipe dream following the three consecutive losses for the State side, who currently sit seven points adrift of second placed T-Team with just six games to go, and should the team wish to cling onto any feint hope of an unlikely promotion to the Super League next season, they must produce a positive result against their opponents tonight.ADVERTISEMENT They must take full advantage of the confidence stricken home side who are on a more dreadful run themselves of seven straight defeats with only two wins in the entire season to date.Closing the gap on their top two rivals will be easier said than done however, for Mike and his squad, with the absence of influential imports El Hadji Diouf and Abdoulaye Faye as well as one of the better local players in the team and new skipper Rawilson Batuil who has to sit out tonight after collecting his sixth yellow card in the match last Friday.Mike when asked on his preparation for the match on Monday said: "The performance on Friday really disappointed me particularly in the second half, probably in 60 minutes we were definitely in control of the game. There were no threats from the opposition, we were causing problems for them, and then we conceded a goal from a set piece and unfortunately after that we performed very poorly."ADVERTISEMENT "I had let the players know that was an absolutely unacceptable performance and they readily accepted that. I think they are ready to make amends tomorrow night and we really need to."We will be making changes to the team as we have suspension to Rawilson (Batuil) which was unfortunate, and Khairi (Kiman) has also picked up an injury. Leo (Leopold Alfonso) is back from suspension so that is a plus for us and he will captain the team tomorrow night."
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He said it is not just winning he is looking for from the team tonight but also the performance of the players."It is not just the three points but we are (also) after a much better performance. The performances lately was not what the fans and I would expect and certainly not the club expected."We had some good team performance early in the season and we put ourselves in a very good position early on but unfortunately we lost our way a little bit."What the players need to know is that you can't play half a season, you need to play all the time and see the job done right through the very end."It is a harsh lesson we are learning at the moment but we know we have developed a decent style of football that draw the fans to watch us in numbers and we need to get back to play like that and that is what I am looking for tomorrow night.Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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"Our Achilles heel this season has been conceding goals. Obviously we need to stop that tomorrow night and make sure that we put some in the other end."Creating goals is really not one of our problems. We didn't score on Friday night so we are looking forward to score some goals tomorrow night and take the game to Kuantan."