Asia-Pacific Tour | Ange previews Lion City Sailors: “We want to end the Tour on a positive note”

Ange Postecoglou is determined to end our Asia-Pacific Tour with a ‘bright performance’ against Lion City Sailors at the Singapore National Stadium on Wednesday (12.30pm UK, 7.30pm local).

After kicking-off the Tour with such an impressive performance, albeit in defeat, against West Ham in Perth, we were all left disappointed by the cancellation of our second match against Leicester City in Bangkok on Sunday night due to adverse weather conditions and a waterlogged pitch.

The players have worked hard in training in Perth, Bangkok and now Singapore since the West Ham game and Ange wants to finish the Tour in style before we fly home from Thailand.

Speaking to SPURSPLAY ahead of training on Tuesday evening, Ange told us: “This game is really important. It was disappointing the last game was cancelled, and we tried to compensate for the fact that we didn’t have the game, so we revved up training.

“It hasn’t been easy because the weather conditions here, it’s pretty hot and humid, but the players have embraced that, worked really hard, and this game is really important for us just to finish off the Tour and get the rewards. It’s a great stadium, the surface is brilliant and hopefully we’ll finish off with a bright performance.”

Ange expects a test from Lion City Sailors, who are three-quarters through their Singapore Premier League season, where they sit third with just four defeats in 20 matches.

As he explained, he knows plenty about matches like this from his time in charge of the likes of Melbourne Victory, Brisbane Roar and Yokohama F Marinos in Japan.

He added: “The fact they are in competition always makes it a challenge and I think when you play these teams, look, I’ve been on the other side of the fence when overseas clubs have come to this side of the world and often, we’d surprise them because we are competitive because we were mid-season.

“Hopefully, it will be a good test for us. I know a couple of their players, particularly Bailey Wright, who I had in the (Australia) national team, La Liga players, good players, they will want to go out there and give it their best.

“Irrespective of the opposition, what’s important for us is that it’s the end of our Tour, we’ve put in a lot of hard work, and it’s important we finish it off on a positive note. The players have been working hard so, physically, they’re not going to be buzzing about, but even within that context, from an exercise of them mentally pushing through that, it will be good to see how they handle it.”

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