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| SABAH’S NUMBER 10 … Koh Traore (right), and Zainizam Marjan (3rd left) will spearhead the attack. |
McCreery knows this is a good opportunity for them to break the duck on the road considering the fact that Kuala Lumpur are one of the four teams that have yet to pick up a single point after 270 minutes of action. The other three teams are Perlis, UiTM FC and NS Betaria FC. However, he knows that football is a funny old game and that anything can happen.
For that reason, all he is asking from his charges is to go into the match with the right frame of mind and positive attitude. “They (Kuala Lumpur) have lost all their previous matches before this so it will be up to us to take the match to them. “However, you never know what can happen in matches like this. It will be up to our players to get the job done right.
They must go in it with a positive attitude,” said McCreery. The State squad left for the national capital with the same first 18 players against Betaria. “I don’t think I’m going to make any changes to the first team that won against Betaria. We have taken the same squad (first 18 against Betaria) and that means Koh Traore and Zainizam Marjan will spearhead the attack.
“Most importantly, we will not take our opponents lightly. We should be able to get the result but we need to be disciplined and must maintain a positive attitude to try and score as many goals as possible,” he said. Sabah failed in their first attempt of picking points away from home after losing 1-3 to KL Sime Darby last week.
However, they have managed to keep a perfect home record by defeating KL Putrajaya FC 2-1 in the opener before the win over NS Betaria on Monday (Jan 14). On the other hand, Kuala Lumpur have not had the best of starts to their season. They have conceded 12 goals in their three defeats to KL Pos Malaysia (3-2), Police (4-0) and Johor (5-1).
But Kuala Lumpur are not without the services of foreign import players. In fact they completed their two foreign players’ quota with defender Valdislav Palsa and midfielder Juraj Kuhajdik. They have also hired Stanislav Lieskovsky as their head coach. All three are Slovakians.
And that is not all, as the Sabahawks will also face at least three of their former players in Jeremy Matthew Danker, Munir Amran and Azizon Abd Kadir, who have since signed for Kuala Lumpur. While Kuala Lumpur are rooting second from the bottom in the 12-team standings, Sabah are currently fifth on six points, three behind table-toppers Police, who have a stunning record with three perfect wins without conceding a single goal.
