Muangthong United 3 TTM Pichit 0 - report

Action from late in the first half

Credit to the forty or so Pichit fans who travelled over 300km for a midweek game and therefore outnumbered the TOT fans who travelled (in theory) 10km or less for a Saturday game.


Line up - Kawin (GK), Pakasit (RB), Panupong (CB), Nattaporn (Capt, CB), Kayem (LB), Dagno (MD), Datsakorn (MD), Chris (LW/RW), Toth (LW/RW), Teerasil (ST), Ahnon (ST). Changes to notice - Pakasit gets a start ahead of Arthit, probably to rest the youngster. Toth makes his first home start and the formation is a very attacking one.


‘thong dominated from the start. I was surprised to see Toth playing so wide and  swapping wings with Chris every few minutes. I guess I’m old fashioned and expect to see a number nine shirt play bang smack down the middle, scoring goals until he is sold to Blackburn for three million quid.

But Toth drew first blood when he fired in a low diagonal shot from the left side (as we faced from the n-zone) towards goal. Chris got a touch to put it in but he immediately pointed to Toth who started to celebrate, so the goal goes to Toth regardless. Fair play to Chris.


From there on it was simply a case of making sure with the second goal but as we chased it, Datsakorn received the ball and ......zaaaap! Out went the lights! Datsakorn threw his hands up in surprise and the teams gathered in circles by the entrance. About ten minutes later the lights came back on. “Great” I thought ; “It would be so annoying to have to replay this.”. MTU chase the goal for another five minutes and .....zap! Out they go again. By now I was sure it would be called off and I was feeling seriously ticked off, in contrast to my deeper-spirited Thai comrades who happily sang away in the dark. Eventually though the lights came back on again and play continued.


The second half saw Dagno enter his effort for 'miss of the season' as Pichit’s Korean goalie was left stranded and Dagno fired over with nothing but a defender on the line to beat. He’s last season’s top-scorer though, so he’s entitled to the odd howler. Datsakorn got a second shortly after and later scored goal number three to wrap it all up. Ahnon came very close several times but didn't quite manage to find the net. Issofau came on and looked better.

Pichit stayed professional but never really looked dangerous. The only other memorable incident was when Pakasit put the ball out of play in error after a very minor shove from a Pichit player. To save face Pakasit went down and acted like he’d been clobbered. The Pichit player responded with a pimp slap on his backside. Game over.

Pichit worked hard but if I were a fan of the team, I’d be worried about their chances of staying up. Like TOT they were organised and knew what they wanted to do, but never looked like they could do it.

So now for the quilins it’s seven points from nine with no goals conceded. The acid test will be the next game away to Navy. Our away form is what has let us down so far and if we are going to surge up the table, that needs to be sorted.


Man of the match in a steady if unspectacular team peformance would most likely be given to Datsakorn for his two goals. Instead, I’d like to give it to Weerawut Kayem who is improving with every game. I especially like the way he is getting forward whenever he can and controls cross-field passes with a smooth first touch.