Sarawak FA needs to depend less on Bobby Gonzales if they want to beat Sabah FA.
February 21, 2019
Bobby Gonzales is no stranger to Malaysian football and all eyes would be on the striker when he plays against his home state this Saturday.
For some unknown reason, Bobby performs best with Sarawak, and history is testament to this.
Back in 2013, the Sabahan was the top local scorer for the Liga Premier and helped Sarawak clinch the league title without a single defeat. During this particular season, Bobby’s tally of goals was 29 goals.
In 2014, he migrated to PDRM, and then Perak, but his goal tally for both teams was below 20 and he didn’t win the golden boot award. He later migrated to Felda United and then PKNS, but his presence was merely making numbers with Bobby getting less playing time than he would have liked.
Bobby returned to Sarawak in 2018, and despite Sarawak’s poor form in the League, the 35-year-old Sabahan still managed to clinch the Golden Boot Award for the Liga Premier that same season with 14 goals from 18 appearances.
This season, Bobby yet again showed that Sarawak is where he excels best with the nippy striker leading the goal scoring charts of the Liga Premier in Game Week 3, sharing it with Luka Milunovic of Sabah FA. Bobby is also by far Sarawak’s most accomplished finisher in the Liga Premier, scoring three times in three games.
It is assured that Bobby would want to increase his goal tally in Game Week 4 of the Liga Premier, but a tricky path lays ahead with his closest rival in the chart, Milunovic playing against Sarawak.
This would put the battle of the Liga Premier scoring charts centered at Stadium Negeri where both Sabah and Sarawak would play over the weekend as both teams would not only want to bring home the full three points, but also help their striker climb the scoring chart.
It is well noted that Bobby can do wonders if he is supplied with the right kind of passes and opportunities, but Sabah likely had studied how Selangor United silenced Bobby in the last match, and this would result in Sarawak needing to seek other ways to help Bobby score.
If Sarawak does not find a solution to feed Bobby’s ‘fox in the box’ playing style, the best option is to empower the likes of Hudson Dias and Muamer Salibasic to score because failure to do just that would see Sarawak losing the classic Borneo Derby yet again.
This article is brought to us by our Sports Writers Club resident columnist – Cyril Dason.
