Aide bemoans Young Lions injuries
Courts Young Lions coach Aide Iskandar believes his team were hamstrung by their injury list in their 2-0 Great Eastern-YEO's S.League loss to Tampines Rovers.
Going into the clash at the Clementi Stadium as underdogs, the Young Lions gave a good account of themselves by holding off the defending champions for the first period.
However, Stags manager Nenad Bacina pulled out the ace that was Aleksandar Duric, who scored midway through the second half after coming on as a substitute, before captain Mustafic Fahrudin doubled sealed the three points with a second six minutes from time.
Aide told FOX SPORTS that he could have used the services of some of his best attackers during the game, but they were unfortunately still sidelined by injury.
"Hopefully players like Fazli Ayob, who's having a hamstring injury, come back soon," the ex-Singapore captain explained. "He'll give me more attacking options up front.
"Fareez Farhan is also having a hamstring strain. Hopefully Sahil [Suhaimi], who couldn't play today [Thursday], will be available next week.
"It'll be a good balanced team, defensively and attackingly, if I have all these players."
The former Hougang United boss set out his team to play on the counterattack, especially down the flanks.
And it nearly paid off for the Young Lions as they twice had excellent opportunities, but Ignatius Ang and Sherif El-Masri both fired their attempts into the side-netting after breaking through the Stags defence.
While Aide bemoaned his players' lack of composure, he remained confident that the Cubs would improve with time.
"As we all know, their two centre-backs and their two central midfielders are probably their biggest strength.
"It's definitely a good block, so we had to avoid them by putting fast players on the sides," Aide shared.
"We almost got one in the first half; Iggy [Ang] went one-on-one with the keeper. He could have done better with a little bit more composure.
"But I believe in this team, they will get better. Hopefully with more games under their belt, they will be a better team."
The Young Lions welcome DPMM FC to the Jalan Besar Stadium for their next S.League game next Thursday.