Injuries put Selangor on backfoot

SELANGOR will start as underdogs against Terengganu at Sultan Ismail Nasiruddin Shah Stadium in Kuala Terengganu today.

Not that the league leaders think too highly of the hosts, who are now just one point behind them in second place, but coach K. Devan said his team are bogged down by serious injuries to several key players.

Devan said it was bad enough that Khairul Anuar Baharum had damaged his knee in the match against Sabah but four more regulars picked up injuries in Kota Baru (against Kelantan) on Tuesday.

"Razman Roslan and Amirulhadi Zainal have problems with their knees, Hardi Jaafar hurt his ankle and Bunyamin Omar pulled a calf muscle.

"All of them will not even be on the bench on Friday (today) and we are not going to be able to field a full strength team against Terengganu," said Devan, who added that considering Terengganu have yet to lose at home this season, his team will be lucky to walk away with a draw.

But Terengganu coach Irfan Bakti said a draw will not be a good result for either team as Kelantan, who are now in third place, could take advantage.

"They (Kelantan) are trailing us by a point and the top spot in the league will be theirs if we share the spoils with Selangor and our neighbours beat Kuala Lumpur in Kota Baru a day later," said Irfan.

"If we want to get to the summit then we have to collect full points."

Irfan said home advantage should count for something as the fans had begun to turn up at the stadium in droves of late.

"I am expecting the stadium to be filled to the brim for the Selangor match and that should give our players extra motivation to do well," he said.

"We have almost everybody available for selection and chances are, there will be goals in this game especially with Hadi Yahya still in the scoring mood."

Hadi, who has scored at least one goal in each of the last six matches, said he plans to keep on scoring to add to his tally of 10 in 15 matches.

"I realise it is not easy to score against Selangor but if Norshahrul could do it in Kota Baru then I should be able to do the same here," said the 26-year-old Klang born who began his football career with Selangor.