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A depleted Central Park squad turned up for the game at Orchid Park Secodary on Sunday and were comprehensively defeated by a clinical Barclays side who took their chances in front of goal and ran out easy 5-2 winners with Stefan and Aaron grabbing the consolation goals.
The run of bad luck continues for Sharks as they still were unable to field their full team after having almost half the season gone. The match saw the team injury list being lengthen with the likes of Jorgensen and Naoki being added to the list with the former almost certainly looking for a long layoff after fracturing his foot while the latter was nursing an sore ankle. The duo now joined the likes of Murugesan, Jiayong, Jeremy Chua and several others on the sidelines as Sharks looked to save their season for the remainder of the games. The game kicked off with Central Park looking the livelier of the two sides but when captain Jeremy had to limp out of the game after a horrendous tackle, Sharks seemed to lose any sense of direction in the game particularly in midfield where the industry and pace which was so often associated with the team now seemed like a forgotten memory. Barclays hit one on the break after a poor clearance from Zhuoneng which put his defense on the back-foot and the opposition took the opportunity with glee as he found the top left hand corner leaving Michael stranded in his goal. That seemed to spark a little life in the Sharks team as they surged forward on numerous occasion but somehow just missing the final ball. The best opportunity fell to Yi Quan who made a marauding run from defense only for his shot to be parried away for a corner. The resulting corner by Heng Li found Stefan who rose majestically unchallenged for the leveler. With the searing heat bearing down on both set of players, standard of play began to petered out as both teams ended the first half leveled.
Second half saw a similar script with Sharks off the blocks quicker of the two teams and they could have taken the lead early in the half when Heng Li pulled his marker wide but his cross to the box found no one in the area. Just when the team was getting their feet into the game, yet another foul throw gave the opposition the opportunity for a quick counter and what a finish it was as Barclays took the lead yet again. As the game wore on, the Sharks defense began to crumble with the lack of support from their midfield counterpart as time and time again, they were outnumbered by the marauding Barclays attack as they put 2 more goals before Aaron look to narrow the lead after some nice interchange of play with Heng Li. Nonetheless, there was no stopping the blue army when they hit a final nail into Sharks coffin and ran out 5-2 winners.
The manager commented, 'Injuries aside, these has been a really bad season for the team. Nonetheless, the team will look to regroup just in time for next season in areas which we need to improve.'
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