Vorawan cautious of counterattacking DPMM

Syahrom Sulaiman
info@sleague.com

It will be an interesting affair for Friday Night Football as fourth-placed Tampines Rovers host third-placed Bruneian side DPMM FC at Jalan Besar Stadium.

The former S.League champions, led by coach Vorawan Chitavanich, knows a thing or two about winning the championship but they will be competing against a highly-impressive side that is already widely-regarded as one of the early championship contenders.

Should DPMM FC win against the Stags this Friday, they will reclaim second spot, or better still, go above current league leaders Gombak United if they have a better goal difference.

DPMM FC’s early impressive performances led to Vorawan being cautious for their first ever encounter.

The Thai said, “They are a very good attacking side. They have three very good players who can actually cause a lot of problems up front.

“Oh Ddog Yi, the former Super Reds player, Abdel (Hamid Berguiga) and their number 17 (Abu Bakar Mahari) are dangerous. We will have to really mark them closely,” Vorawan remarked.

Nevertheless, Vorawan is still very confident that his side can get the result which they need to chase the leading pack of clubs in the league.

He said, “At the end of the day, we will just concentrate on our own performance and we should not care too much about the other club. This is because if we do so, we will naturally perform well.

“Qiu Li might not be fully fit to face them and we will have to wait for the doctor’s report to see whether he can sit on the bench, but I have other good attacking options like Aliff (Shafaein) and (Noh) Alam Shah.

“I might revert back to the usual 3-5-2 tactics because our players usually play well when we use this formation,” Vorawan added a hint of what we could expect from his side ahead of Friday’s clash.

The Stags’ 3-5-2 formation has been their trademark for the past few seasons and DPMM FC have got to be wary once the wingers like Ridhuan Muhammad start raiding down the flanks.

However, they shouldn’t be too adventurous because of the Bruneians’ ability to launch dangerous counter-attacks.

S.League clubs should have sat up and taken notice by now. This is primarily how DPMM FC usually get their impressive results from the past few games. This is definitely the one area which Vorawan needs to address ahead of this Friday’s fixture.