Kedah coach slams players for wasting chances against Kelantan

PETALING JAYA: Kedah head coach Mohd Nidzam Adzha Yusoff slammed his side for being wasteful and complacent in their 2-1 home defeat to relegation battlers Kelantan in the Super League.

Brazilian striker Paulo Rangel converted the spot-kick to put Kedah in front in the 25th minute, but a lapse of concentration in the second half saw Kelantan fire two goals in quick succession through Nik Azli in the 55th minute and Danial Ashraf four minutes later to claim the three points at the Darul Aman Stadium in Alor Setar on Tuesday.

Besides slipping to their second straight league defeat, Nidzam was clearly irked by the Red Eagles’ failure to seize the opportunity to overtake Perak, who are two points ahead, in third place.

Kedah remain fourth on 21 points – 11 behind leaders JDT.

“I’m very disappointed as we have now lost two matches in a row... I didn’t see it (the defeat) coming tonight,” lamented Nidzam.

“But we only have ourselves to blame.

“It was due to our own mistakes, the players took it easy during the second half, so the visitors punished us for it.

“Also, we wouldn’t lose this game if we had done better in front of the goal.

“We had so many chances to score to but took none of them.”

For Kelantan, their third victory of the season did little to improve on their league position. The Red Warriors are still bottom with 11 points.

The unexpected win, however, at least stopped the rot for the East Coast side and is something they would want to build on following the departure of their chief coach Fajr Ibrahim.

The Syrian threw in the towel after Kelantan were thrashed 4-0 by Selangor last week. Fajr tendered his resignation on Tuesday.

His deputy Yusri Che Lah was appointed as the interim head coach and made an immediate impact.