16 Jan Kedah will bounce back

KEDAH coach Azraai Khor is refusing to panic despite the situation his team are in. The treble champions only have one point to show after four matches, are second from bottom in the standings and staring at potential relegation. The forced departure of their foreign legion has hit them badly but Azraai is confident Kedah will rediscover the sting that saw them win back-to-back trebles. The first team to do a double treble are struggling simply because the strikers are raw and Azraai can only hope that his strikers Khyril Muhymeen and Badrol Bakhtiar will find the net soon. “One thing for sure is that we are facing problems with the strikers. The players lack experience and I can only hope that as matches go by, they will be more aggressive,” said Azraai. “I am not concerned at all about our position in the standings as the season is still young. What we need to do is find consistency.”

Another problem, and Azraai agreed this could be a possibility, is the lack of hunger after dominating Malaysian football for two seasons. “There are some who are showing signs of this but this shouldn’t be as they are professionals and they must perform.” Azraai gets a chance to arrest the slide as the MSL is on a two-week break and Kedah play their next match on Feb 10. Meanwhile, Kedah FA president Datuk Seri Azizan Abdul Razak wants Datuk Othman Aziz to continue managing the team. Attributing the current dismal performance partly to Othman’s absence, Azizan said he would write to FAM to include Othman as the team manager. “There were some technical glitches over Othman’s role in our football campaign this year which led to his name being dropped from the managers list. “Technically, Othman is still the manager since his contract will only expire in June,” said Azizan, who is also the Menteri Besar.