Get hungry, PJ City coach Devan tells his strikers

Petaling Jaya (PJ) City coach K. Devan has ordered his attacking players to show more hunger after a lacklustre display in their home defeat to Terengganu.

The Phoenix fell to a 0-2 loss in their suspended Super League clash at the Petaling Jaya Stadium on Saturday when the season resumed after nearly six months of suspension due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The seasoned coach was also upset that his men’s poor defending saw Terengganu striker Dominique

Da Sylva fire a brace after pouncing on Mahali Jasuli’s poor back pass and a solo effort for his second of the match.

Devan said wasting two golden opportunities to score in the first half backfired massively.

“I need to find options for our scoring woes ... I’m very disappointed to lose our home game,” said a dejected Devan.

“We had a good start, we played well in the opening 25 minutes and had our chances but we couldn’t convert our chances.

“We will have to work on improving our attacking before our next game.”

The defeat leave PJ City tenth in the 12-team Super League table with four points after four matches. They will next take on Selangor at the UiTM Stadium in Shah Alam on Aug 29.

Devan said he was waiting for Guinean forward Aboubacar Demba Camara to rejoin the team soon after returning home to sort out a personal issue.

“We were losing the ball too easily in the middle of the park and this is something we need to fix.

“Another thing I cannot accept is that we conceded both goals in similar manners,” said Devan.

“The goals were conceded even we had three players defending against one of their attacking players ... this is something that shouldn’t happen at this level. We should have done better in those two situations.”

“We did show improvements in the second half but we lacked the creativity to break past the Terengganu defence. We will be ready to improve for the next game.”