LionsXII coach Fandi Ahmad expressed his satisfaction with his players' display despite their narrow 2-1 loss to Kelantan FA on Tuesday, with his team missing key players like Safuwan Baharudin and Khairul Amri.
The Red Warriors dominated the match and went 2-0 up with a goal each from Fakri Saarani and Khairul Izuan before and after the break, but a defensive lapse then let Faris Ramli in to score.
However, there was to be no equaliser eventually as the hosts held on, with the result mathematically ending the LionsXII's hopes of retaining the Malaysia Super League title.
“I’m a bit disappointed for the boys because they gave their all, even though we were under strength today,” said the former Singapore international.
“But I’m quite happy with the performance today even though it was a bad result.”
The LionsXII put on a much better display of attacking football in the last 30 minutes of the game after Faris's revived their spirits, and Fandi pointed out they could have easily added to that strike.
“The first half wasn’t that good but we kept pushing up front in the second half and we could have scored at two or three goals in the last 25 minutes," he said.
“It’s not easy to play in Kelantan. We avoided them punishing us early because they will always go hard in the first 25 minutes but they cooled down and then we started playing. I thought we did quite well tactically."
Looking forward, the LionsXII coach understands that the MSL title dream is over, but Fandi still hopes to finish as high as possible as they take on Sarawak FA next this Saturday.
“Hopefully we get our starters back, we missed four of our players today but I thought the reserves did really well," he said. "We really need our strikers so hopefully Amri and Zulfahmi [Arifin] will be back."
His opposite number, George Boateng claimed after the game that things had been too "easy" for them, where they had to endure a nervy closing to the game after dominating much of it.
“The LionsXII came back well, but it was too easy for us,” said the former Premier League midfielder.
“Most of my players felt quite comfortable in the first half, and once we got to 2-0, they became too comfortable and made little mistakes that led to the goal.
“We controlled the game until the moment that we made a mistake. We work so hard to get a goal and we give goals away, and that has been my problem since I’ve been here."
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