SINGAPORE (8 Aug 2015) – Warriors FC coach Alex Weaver said that he will not be too concerned with Nicolas Velez’s imminent departure as plans are in the works to ensure Velez’s leaving will not affect the club.
The defending Great Eastern Yeo’s S.League champions had announced that the Argentinian will be joining Indian Super League side NorthEast United on 21st August, after both personal and club terms have been agreed.
Velez was arguably the most influential player on the team behind goalkeeper Hassan Sunny in Warriors’ 2014 S.League triumph, and was named the Young Player of the Year in recognition of his outstanding performances.
This season, he has eight goals and seven assists to his name in 11 S.League games. In the 2-1 win over Tampines Rovers, he came off the bench to change the game and netted a stunning winner in his last league game for the Warriors.
“We’ll miss him for sure,” Weaver said to www.s.league.com. “But we’ve got one or two things we are working on that might be a little bit of surprise to some people.
“We’ll announce that nearer to the time and we will miss Nico (Velez) for sure, but I’m not concerned [about missing his contributions on the pitch].
Weaver chose to focus on his team’s strengths instead, and felt that it was a wonderful team effort that helped Warriors to record their first win in five league games.
“Our togetherness last season was one of the main thing that provided success for us. I challenged them to repeat that and they did that exactly. So it was fantastic from them tonight,” Weaver stated.
“I thought it was a pretty good game. It was very good for the S.League; the S.League need games like this. It was a good game played between two good teams that are playing well. It took a mistake for them to break us down, and it took something special from us to break them down.
“You can see the difference our key players made, and I told the players the most satisfying part of it is how well we executed what we want to do tactically.
“Our midfield players were very disciplined. I thought Shi Jiayi was very fantastic screening their strikers, Karlo and Hafiz and Emmeric did well too. Tactically, they were very good.”
Weaver also believes that the three points will help to take some pressure off his charges, especially after how things have not gone their way in the last four matches.
“In terms of picking up points and league standings, maybe,” Weaver suggested. “The performances recently have been very good and the players know they are performing well, but we just had a few things go against us in games in terms of key players being out and refereeing decisions – I thought the referee was very good tonight.
“And the game on Wednesday against Home United is another game to help us increase that momentum so we are really looking forward to that and I fancy a little bit of cup run this year.”
Meanwhile, Tampines coach V. Sundramoorthy could not believe that his side had lost the game despite holding the lead for most of the second half.
However, he is putting this game behind as he challenged his team to pick themselves up.
“It is very hard for me to accept the defeat but this is the way football is and we should pick ourselves up and prepare for the next game,” Sundram said.
“We still have 16 more games, and anything is possible. But Warriors are our closest rivals and we should have at least got a point from today to keep pace with them. Now, we let them stretch to seven points, we need to pick ourselves up again start to get the points back again.”
Tampines will face Brunei DPMM in the RHB Singapore Cup next week, and Sundram believes that his side have some things to work on before taking on the Bruneian side.
“This is another game in the Singapore Cup, and it will be interesting when we play DPMM,” Sundram said. “I think the boys will be motivated to win this cup.
“But we have to work on our weaknesses.. the closing down outside the box should have been better tonight and not allowing the players to shoot freely.
“We also need to keep focus until the final whistle, for 84 minutes, we were okay. We need to go back and watch the video to see where things went wrong and try to work on it.
“That’s the best we can do.”
S-LEAGUE 2015 Current Standings
| No | Team | P | W | D | L | GF | GA | GD | Pts |
| 1 | Warriors | 11 | 8 | 0 | 3 | 22 | 18 | +4 | 24 |
| 2 | Albirex Niigata Singapore | 12 | 7 | 2 | 3 | 15 | 8 | +7 | 23 |
| 3 | Brunei DPMM | 9 | 6 | 1 | 2 | 17 | 10 | +7 | 19 |
| 4 | Balestier Khalsa | 10 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 15 | 13 | +2 | 14 |
| 5 | Tampines Rovers | 10 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 12 | 11 | +1 | 14 |
| 6 | Home United | 12 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 14 | 15 | −1 | 13 |
| 7 | Geylang International | 11 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 12 | 13 | −1 | 12 |
| 8 | Harimau Muda | 7 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 9 | 11 | −2 | 10 |
| 9 | Hougang United | 11 | 1 | 4 | 6 | 9 | 18 | −9 | 7 |
| 10 | Young Lions | 7 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 4 | 12 | −8 | 4 |
