Selangor again underwhelmed in the Malaysia Super League, after they were held to a 1-1 draw at home by Melaka United on Friday.
In the matchday seven encounter, the visitors stunned the hosts first against the run of play, Uche Agba opening the scoring in the 39th minute through a low shot from outside the box. Just a minute later, Sandro da Silva found the quick equaliser, but the Red Giants failed to capitalise on their dominance to find their winner in the second half. Worse still, star midfielder Brendan Gan was sent off for a second yellow with five minutes left in the game.
While head coach B. Satiananthan admitted that his forwards' forms have not been terrific, he stopped short of criticising the form of his whole team.
"Yes, we controlled the game and had plenty of chances, but the fans are going to focus on the fact that we didn't win. Sometimes no matter how hard you try in the match, for example in our earlier match against Petaling Jaya City (0-0 draw), we can't score.
"We can't blame the strikers; Ifedayo [Olusegun], Rufino [Segovia] tried, Syazwan [Zainon] had chances. But they couldn't convert the chances and we were under pressure for the last five minutes. If we had scored earlier in the match, I think the game would have been ours.
Next Match
"I can't teach strikers to score, no coach can. A coach that can do that is Superman. What can I say? If my players don't put away their chances, they can't expect their coach to come on and score for them," explained the former Malaysia head coach after the game.
He added that while his strikers have been misfiring, the rest of the team should shoulder the responsibility of finding the back of the net.
"It [Selangor's problem] is just that we haven't been scoring more," he noted. "We've controlled all our games since the league resumed. Our opponents had few chances.
"I have to have them work more on scoring, but the baffling thing is, they can score during practice! I think this is down to pressure. But at the end of the day, I'm satisfied with their commitment and the way they performed, but they need to convert the chances. Not just Rufino and Ifedayo, but the rest of the team as well in set piece situations. There are four more games to go [in the Malaysia Super League] and we need to keep working."
Despite the underwhelming result, the one point was enough to allow them to move up to fourth place.
