Submitted by: Confaderal | 29th August 2024
"East side, best side!", said one schoolboy to another. I sat through the bus ride in bemusement as I recalled how many times in my life I've heard this slogan. I've heard it since I was a teenager, in family functions, and during dates with some of my previous partners.
It's a turn-off.
It's like repeating "Make America Great Again" to the whole world. No one is interested to hear it.
Sure, Tampines-Bedok-Pasir ris used to be the "town away from town" in suburban Singapore. You either spent your weekends at Orchard; mall-hopping, or Tampines; mall hopping. Tampines used to be the jewel estate — having mega-malls like Century Square, Tampines mall, Tampines One, Eastlink & OTH in their immediate vicinity. Nearby, there's Eastpoint, Downtown East, White sands, Elias Mall. But that was decades ago.
Since then, we've had other "jewel estate" throughout Singapore, example, in the west — Jurong Point, WestGate, IMM, JEM, all situated in one grand location. In the North-East, We've had NEX mall, Waterway point, Sengkang General Hospital, Compass One, Northshore Plaza, Sengkang Grand Mall and more popping out.
It's funny that the "East side, best side" slogan comes only from the Eastern heartlands: Tampines-Pasir Ris-Bedok. Nested close to them, their affluent neighbours of Kembangan-East Coast-Marine Parade seldom utter this slogan.
So nowadays, everyone has a claim to the "best side" slogan. Right?
In terms of football: With the loss of the OTH this season, BG Tampines can no longer claim "East side, best side". Giants. Must. Fall.
And we hope Hougang is the team to do it. To end their no-loss streak! So here are 3 talking points we've gathered in our encounter against BG Tampines: BG TAMPINES ROVERS VS HOUGANG UTD - SPL 24/25 ROUND 2. "East side, back-side"! 🍑
"East side, Back-side!" — Anonymous
CHAPTER 1: The 4-2-3-1
BG Tampines's Head Coach; Gavin constructed the Tampines brand of football in the 4-2-3-1 formation. And why wouldn't he? The formation itself is known for it's possession-based advantage. Furthermore, the formation is also renowned to be very versatile — in that it can be as defensive or as offensive as needed. It reminds me of the 4-4-2 in the 90s if you will. The 4-2-3-1 is a one-size fits all formation.
But a jack-of-all-trades is a master of none. This 4-2-3-1 formation that is employed is a rather narrow formation (though it's versatile enough to become wide: by deploying it's left and right midfield wider). Tampines typically does as below:
Movement | Players involved (Description) |
Roaming playmaker | Seia. Is able to roam to provide overloads in attack. and also to cover Glenn defensively. |
Assymetrical Wingbacks | The only wingback that Tampines will push up is Glenn on the left flank. Surprisingly, Amirul is the right wingback in this game and he stayed put. This leaves only Faris on the right flank to cross. |
Roles of the 2 pivots | While Kyoga Nakamura will stay deep and spray passes. Shah is tasked with being the box-to-box. Considering that Kyoga had a poor game against their recent game vs Balestier, Gavin replaced Kyoga with Milos, and introduced Jared into the back-3. |
Pressing strategy | The 3-1 of Tampines will look to form a diamond press to one side of the pitch against a buildup. This forces opponents to go wide. |
CHAPTER 2: The key battle on amirul's flank
In a recent match against Balestier Khalsa where BG Tampines drew 2-2, we can see the master blueprint set out by Balestier to antagonize Tampines. Perhaps we can use it to gauge where the key battles will be.
From the passing heatmap above, we can see majority of Balestier's passes in the final third to be on the flank that Amirul Adli is on. In the first half, Amirul was on right-back duty. In the second half, Amirul switched to left-back duty. Now I'm not saying that they targeted Amirul, no. Amirul had a solid game except for his error in giving away the last minute penalty. Despite his flank being more "free", If we look at the amount of crosses that Amirul's flank allows, we can discern his efficiency in defending his flank ultimately.
On Amirul's flank, we saw 3/9 crosses in the first half, and 4/10 crosses in the second half. So as mentioned, it's not they're targeting his flank, but rather, this could be the result of Balestier finding more passing lanes on Amirul's flank. Perhaps something we can exploit! (and beware of Amirul's defending).
CHAPTER 3: Tampines' build-up
The labor of love for Gavin's possession-based side lies in his build-up play which exemplifies this Tampines side. The brains of his machinery comes from the constant passing in the first phase to free up space.
Against Balestier, we saw more passes in Tampines's own half then in the opponent's territory. But where usually, Tampines have more joy passing in the final third, we find that in this game, they were stifled. My guess is that a combination of good build-up play out of pressure, and keeping their shape from Balestier really made Tampines look ordinary. And not just that, Balestier managed to still play their attacking football. Tampines had to defend deep most times.
In the second half, Balestier turned up the heat against Tampines as the latter sought to sit deep and defend a 2-1 lead.
Now, while Hougang doesn't have as efficient an attack as Balestier, what we can do well instead, is in the defensive part. If Balestier can pull their socks up and give a good account of themselves defensively, then I'm pretty sure we can do so too. Let Tampines play their build-up but we need to stay in our shape and be solid.
Oh, and becareful to not commit fouls when defending! We can see from the above diagram that fouls committed from both sides are away from the centre of the field.
CHAPTER 4: Who are the best passers?
First, I would like to say that based on the data collected and the eye test while doing it, I gotta say, Milos's passes do look dangerous. He's a ball-playing defender and if need to, he'll fill Kyoga's role in midfield as a deep lying playmaker. In one of the diagrams below, he committed 6 key passes!
When I compiled this data, I was shocked at how limited Seia Kunori was in this match. Balestier truly stifled Seia. But even though Seia was quite pedestrian in this match, he still managed to score one goal for Tampines. This is a sign of true quality.
In this match, Seia had only three successful passes and 5 thru-passes made.
But anyways I digress, we're here to check on who made the most passes for the Tampines side. If we take away the defenders who have the most passes from their build-up play, we come up with Shah(24), Kyoga(19) and Faris(19). Of the three, when we look at Faris, we can see that he had 4 key passes made.
Faris also has 2 corners taken and had one assist from the cross. We need to do well against Faris if indeed we have a gameplan for Seia. Like in the words of the MRT announcer: "Please, do not leave Faris unattended!".
closing CHAPTER
Unfortunately, we have come to the end of this article. In summary, this will be another game where we have to dig deep, defend and bide our time to create attacking opportunities against a resolute BG Tampines Rovers team. Tampines will know that we are quick off-the-blocks and will aim to cut out our counter attacks. Whether they do that successfully is another matter. I went searching online and found that Milos and Amirul do have a tendency to foul.
Perhaps we can leverage on this when our constant counter attacks will eventually lead them to a card.
The trio of Zaiful, Ensar and Faris Hasic will need to be on their toes to counter the threat of Tampines. Our wingbacks of Nazrul and Jordan will have to also sit back as we have to deal with the threats out-wide especially Faris and Seia. But as learnt in the match between Balestier and BG Tampines, anything is possible.
In summary, (a)exploit Amirul Adli's side, (b)keep the shape during Tampines's build up, (c)stop Seia & Faris[and Milos], (d)exploit Milos and Amirul's tenacity.
But whatever our players do, win or lose, keep your heads up and continue going at BG Tampines. Don't stop giving them hell! East side, Back-side! #1H1H
BG Tampines Rovers vs Hougang Quick Report:
- 4-2-3-1 formation preferred (BG Tampines).
- Injured: Shuya Yamashita
-Taufik usually added in the second half to add more aerial threat when crosses seem to be Tampines's main outlet.
- Dangermen: Seia, Milos, Faris, Boris, Taufik
-exploit Amirul Adli's side/flank
-keep the shape during Tampines's build up
-stop Seia, Faris & Milos from their passing game.
-Get fouls off of Milos and Amirul's tenacity
-Hougang needs to continue showing another excellent defensive display again.
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Can Hougang hand BG Tamp their first defeat?
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Where do you think the key battles will be?
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