KUANTAN: PAHANG coach Dollah Salleh did not hide his unhappiness after his team drew 0-0 with Perak in their Super League opener in Kuantan on Sunday.
Dollah admitted that his side are still struggling to find their feet as Pahang were fortunate to escape with a point after a woefully below par performance.
The home side missed the services of their top scorer last season, Matheus Alves who possessed the ability to keep the ball under pressure, create opportunities for his teammates as well as score goals.
Pahang relied on Gambian Mohamadou Sumareh who looked dangerous as he dribbled past the Perak players but the winger ended up being the subject of several tough tackles.
Dollah admitted that the entire team depended on Sumareh as the others were not prepared to keep the ball at their feet when the team launched their attack.
"Azam (Nor Azam Abdul Azih) is our playmaker who usually dictates the flow of the game and our new signing Chan (Vathanaka) did well to distribute the ball to our attackers during the pre-season. Sadly, against Perak both did not hit the mark and I was forced to replace them in the second half.
"This is certainly not the style of play that I was expecting as the players tried to play long ball and ended up committing silly errors during the match.
“Luckily Perak did not punish us by scoring as they had several opportunities and could easily get past our backline," he said.
Perak coach Mehmet Durakovic was all smiles, saying he was happy with the outcome despite feeling that his players should have won the match.
"Both Wander Luiz and Gilmar (Jose Da Silva Filho) were fantastic and our midfield was doing a good job especially Brendan Gan who showed a lot of promise despite starting his first match after quite some time.
"I have a good mixture of young and experienced players who can play to my game plan and we might rotate some of the players in our next match against Kedah.”