Selangor worried over injury to striker Amri Yahyah

Selangor's joy at reaching the Malaysia Cup semi-finals has been tempered with concern over the fitness of captain Amri Yahyah.

Amri, the mercurial Selangor forward, was withdrawn midway through the first half of his team's 1-0 quarter-final second leg win over Perak in Ipoh on Friday after taking a blow to his knee and could miss the first leg of Tuesday's semi-final against Terengganu in Shah Alam.

Coach P. Maniam will assess Amri, who has three goals in the Malaysia Cup, over the next two days before reviewing his options against Terengganu, who dumped holders Kelantan out of the tournanment 5-3 on aggregate.

Maniam, who has won all four matches in charge of Selangor since taking over from K. Devan, was pleased with how his team coped in Amri's absence as they completed a 4-1 aggregate win.
 

"We are glad we have made the semi-finals and the team played very well in the second leg. In the first half, the players were a bit nervous and as expected, Perak came at us looking for goals.

"The defence did very well and it is not to say we did not create chances as we had two or three opportunities to score. We played better in the second half, took the game to Perak and we scored," said Maniam yesterday.

The goal scored by Amri's replacement Rudie Ramli, his 10th of the season and second in the tournament, gives Maniam confidence that the striker is ready to replace Amri if the skipper does not recover in time.

"I will have to see how Amri responds to treatment to his knee before deciding on anything. I'm not sure of his condition yet but I'm confident whoever takes his place will be able to do the job.

"Playing Terengganu will not be easy as they are a good team under Irfan (Bakti Abu Salim) and are a very attacking-minded side as we saw against Kelantan.

"But we will not change our playing style and we will maintain the same formation as against Perak," said Maniam, who has adopted a 4-1-2-3 formation recently with a holding midfielder shielding the defence and a two wingers in support of a lone striker.

Selangor will be strengthened by the return of Bunyamin Umar from suspension although Hardi Jaafar did well in the defensive midfield role in Ipoh as the back four of Asraruddin Putra Omar, Nazri Ahmad, P. Gunalan and Razman Roslan and goalkeeper G. Jeevananthan kept a clean sheet for the first time under Maniam's charge.

Perak fielded three players who had their seven-match bans lifted on Monday but there was little that Akmal Rizal Ahmad Rakhli, Shahrulnizam Mustapha and goalkeeper Nasril Nourdin could do in finding a way past Selangor.

Coach Norizan Bakar only had a few words to say of his team's elimination after the match: "I thank my players for their effort but the result did not favour us. That's all I have to say."