Salim resigns as Stags' coach

SINGAPORE - For the third season running, Tampines Rovers will endure a mid-season change in their coaching department.

Salim Moin has resigned and will leave the defending Great Eastern-Yeo's S.League champions after a torrid April that saw the Stags win just twice in seven outings, surrender their lead at the top of the league, and perhaps most crucially - watch their AFC Cup dreams go up in smoke.

"Salim has resigned - he wasn't sacked - but I will honour his contract and pay him till the end of the year," club chairman Teo Hock Seng told The New Paper.

CLUB DEMANDS

"He didn't do well. He knows the demands of the club, and I warned him that we're not an easy club to handle because the players have been complacent, and expectations are high."

General manager Tay Peng Kee was called upon each time Tampines' head coach left the club the last two years - Steven Tan in 2012 and Nenad Bacina last year - but Teo has yet to decide on who will replace Salim.

"I have to decide who will take over, and where we go from here. But now is not the time to go and pluck a coach from somewhere, drop him here and expect him to get things right," said Teo, who revealed that he will be meeting with the team this afternoon.

Salim joined from Woodlands Wellington after leading the perennial strugglers to a top-half finish last year, with Clement Teo (team manager) and Matthew Tay (goalkeeper coach) following him out of the Woodlands Stadium. It remains to be seen if the duo will leave with Salim.

While Teo has criticised the football dished out by his team, saying too many goals have been conceded and too few scored, he believes that the players must also shoulder blame.

"Salim is not to be blamed fully. This team are difficult to handle: on paper we are OK, but on the field we are not," said Teo.

"In most clubs, the foreign players are doing well and the local players not so, but here it's the opposite - my foreign players are worse than the local boys - and that hasn't been good for Salim.

"The players need to look at themselves."

It is a clear shape-up-or-ship-out message for the club's foreign quintet, as the S.League's transfer window (June 2 - 27) approaches.

While Miljan Mrdakovic has six league strikes, the goals have dried up.

Paraguayan duo Luis Closa and Roberto Martinez have impressed, but only in patches, while Japanese pair Kunihiro Yamashita and Norihiro Kawakami have struggled with injuries and the pace of opposition forwards.

Once known for their stability and spirit, things have not quite been the same for the Stags since they were forced to vacate their spiritual home of Tampines Stadium - for construction works for the proposed Tampines Town Hub - before the 2012 season and move into Clementi Stadium.

REPLACED

Tan was replaced by club manager Tay in August that year, despite the club being perched atop the table, and it was a similar situation the following year when Bacina was sacked in May.

This time around, the change has come even earlier, in April.

Home United, who occupied Clementi from 2009 to 2010 while their Bishan Stadium was upgraded, also suffered poor fortunes. They suffered two trophy-less years, with former coach PN Sivaji departing the club after the 2009 season.

Lee Lim Saeng's Home won the RHB Singapore Cup in their first season back at Bishan in 2011.

Teo called for Tampines to close ranks, and fast.

"I can put a team together, but they need to get things right on the field and, like an orchestra, we need a conductor," he said.

"Our next league games are against Albirex Niigata, Warriors FC and Home United. At this juncture, we cannot afford to lose."

"I've not gotten involved in team matters, and have left things to Salim… But people know how to play us - pack their defence and pump long balls on the break - we have to look at our line-up and how we play. Salim has left and now we have to rework our strategy." - Tampines Rovers' chairman Teo Hock Seng (right)

S.LEAGUE

This article was published on April 28 in The New Paper.

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