Wednesday, 20 July 2011

Malaysian defence wants to shut out Chelsea

Chelsea striker Fernando Torres did not have the start to his Chelsea career that he might have hoped for last season when he managed only one goal in 18 games after moving from Liverpool in January.
That is not the kind of return on an investment Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich would have expected, having splashed STG50 million (RM250 million) to lure the Spaniard to Stamford Bridge.

Torres is still struggling to get into his stride after failing to score in Chelsea's two pre-season games so far against Wycombe Wanderers (3-0) and Portsmouth (1-0) prior to their arrival in Kuala Lumpur.

It may be that a make-shift Malaysian Selection side at the National Stadium tomorrow presents the perfect opposition for Torres to emerge from his barren goal run.
 
Kelantan centre-back S. Subramaniam, however, is determined that neither Torres nor other Chelsea strikers will breach the home team's defence.

"It's not right to say that we have a minimum target (of goals). I always go into every game with a positive attitude and we certainly don't want to let in a goal.

"I know it will be tough task to keep them out but we'll be doing our best to make sure we don't concede. If anything, this game will make us better players. We will all be aiming to do our best no matter who we have to face," said Subramaniam, who last played for the country at the Grand Royal Challenge Cup in Yangon in November 2008.

It will not be the first time Subramaniam will line up against Chelsea as he came on in the last 10 minutes in the national team's 2-0 defeat in 2008 against the English club.

Malaysian Selection coach Ong Kim Swee has been trying out Subramaniam with former national skipper Norhafiz Zamani Misbah as the centre-back partnership in training.

Playing alongside Zamani is nothing new for Subramaniam, who regularly partnered the Negri Sembilan defender in the national team under B. Sathianathan in 2008.

"It may be three years ago since I last played with Zamani but it did not take long for us to re-establish our understanding. There's no problem playing with him," added Subramaniam.

Completing the back-line will be Terengganu youngster Zubir Azmi at left-back and Kelantan's experienced Daudsu Jamaluddin on the right.

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