Kota Kinabalu: Injury-hit Sabah should not encounter much difficulties as they take on Kuala Lumpur in their Premier League match at the Likas Stadium today (Tuesday).The home team are no longer the same side which lost to Kuala Lumpur earlier in the season.
The players have improved leaps and bound since and will be gearing for revenge after the 2-3 loss to the same team.
They have proven time and again that they are not short of firepower and the 1-0 loss to KL Pos in the previous match was all due to the strikers' off day as assistant manager Yahya Kassim put it.
He said the players did everything right during the match apart from scoring and the final result left everybody gutted.
"It was just unfortunate that both Koh Traore and Zainizam Marjan left their scoring boots behind in the match."
"We could have gone three or even four up during the match if only both strikers were lethal on the day. It was very rare that Koh failed to hit the target in a one on one situation but he did on that day, so it just summed up our bad fortune."
The misses proved their undoing as KL Pos managed to score against the run of play late in the match to grab all three points and in doing so closed the gap with only one point separating the two teams now.
Sabah will depend on new import Abdelfatah Safi who again stole the show with his defence splitting passes against KL Pos.
He is expected to produce the same form today and the coach may play him as a striker to support Koh while Zainizam will take over the playmaker position as the team tries to unlock the KL defence which will also feature former Sabah custodian Azizon Abd Kadir as their goalkeeper.
However, the team may have problems defensively as captain Rosdin Wasli sustained an injury during the KL Pos match that needed three stitches on his forehead and his central defender role will be taken over by Hardy Charles Parsi and Shahril Faizal Ahmad Shariffuddin.
Defensive midfielder Mohd Fazilidin Khalid is also out injured and it will be a toss between Didie Arizal and Radzi Hussin to see who will start for the team in that position today.
There will be no changes in the other positions with Shahril Saa'ri as the goalkeeper, the two wing backs being Julamri Mohd and Shahrul Azhar Ture while Alto Linus and Shahrudin Yakup will occupy the two flanks.
