| Fadhil Yunus |
DPMM FC head coach Steve Kean has indicated that his charges looked susceptible to conceding goals during the 5-3 home defeat to Warriors FC in the Great Eastern-Hyundai S League at the Hassanal Bolkiah National Stadium on Saturday night.
While Kean elaborated that he has no doubt that his side are capable of popping up with goals from all around the pitch, he felt that his side looked likely to concede anytime during the game.
The Gegar Gegar men have passed double digits in terms of goals conceded this season after shipping five at home, their highest since the 4-4 draw against Home United in October 2015.
The head coach highlighted the absence of protection for his players from referee Jansen Foo and certain calls which went against their favour which subsequently led to Warriors’ goals.
“We were expecting a foul on Ramazotti and we don’t get it. They cleared the ball and got up and scored. I thought it was a clear foul. And then the second one when they get another goal it played up to Ramazotti, he took a lovely touch on his chest and we get a foul against us. And then they played forward and score,” said Kean in a post-match interview.
“I get confused when I see some of the decisions from the referee because it looks like our forwards don’t really get a lot of protection and then anytime that the opposition defence playing against we’ve got guys that got stud marks on the back, on the neck and on their head.”
“We’re looking for just the same protection not any more than the opposition,” he added.
The head coach also lamented his side’s defending which has been a recurring theme this season.
DPMM FC’s Azwan Ali in action against Warriors FC. – KHAIRIL HASSAN
“We didn’t defend well. We defended poorly especially Jordan Webb’s goal where he takes it and he was on the touch-line for a long time. He’s showed good skills but we’ve got to tackle better and we’ve got to defend much better as a team.”
“And at the moment we always look like scoring but tonight (Saturday) we look like conceding goals as well which means more hard work on the training ground and we need to turn this bad run around just with hard work.”
The former Blackburn Rovers manager stressed the importance of defending better as a team.
“We know as a team we have to do better and obviously individually and collectively on the defending side we have to defend better because we can’t get to a stage where we have to score six goals to win a game at home.”
Kean added that with a quality frontline they are capable of getting the goals but similarly the goals scored against them looks to be flooding in as well.
“We do always look like scoring but at the moment we look like conceding goals and that’s the bit first of all we’ve got to put right then we move forward again.”
Asked how much defensive work would be required in training, Kean replied: “A lot. We can do the analysis on each of the goals and there’s a coaching session to be done in each one of the goals. We can’t concede goals so easily but as I’ve said there were two decisions in there that put us in the back-foot.”
“We were in bad position because we expected to get free kicks but we should be in a position where we don’t expect anything and get our organisation behind the ball better and that’s what we’ll be doing when we get to the training ground again tomorrow,” the head coach concluded.
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