Invincible season dreams crushed as Kitchee blown away- Kitchee 1 Lee Man 4

Match summary

Kitchee lost in the league for the first time this season as a destructive first half from Lee Man saw Kitchee trail 3-0 after nineteen minutes. Kitchee improved somewhat as the game went on but eventually succombed to a 4-1 defeat, with Martin Merquelanz scoring his first Kitchee goal. This marked Kitchee's worst defeat at Mong Kok Stadium for over fifteen years.

Team news

Callum Beattie and Roger Riera were out injured, with Ruslan Mingazow rested. Adrian Revilla, Jay Haddow, Kendy and Ari Lam came into the starting line up, with Haddow lining up on the left of a back three.

Bear; Dantas, Jason, Haddow (Jordan 24); Ari (Buddle 75), Lok (c) (Juninho 46), Illarramendi, Merquelanz; Kendy (Chan Shing-chun 75); Adrian, Leandro (Kanda 57)

Unused subs: Wang, Law, Lung, Anson, Slattery, Li Siu-hin

Match events

Everton gave Lee Man the lead after 6 minutes, with Dantas beaten for pace by Baffoe just like in the League Cup final to set up Everton. Just over ten minutes later, sloppy play from Leandro in midfield saw the ball turned over, and a long ball forward from Gaucho found Baffoe who doubled the lead. Less than two minutes after this, Dantas could not complete a pass to Ari Lam, and Tachibana intercepted and played in Baffoe, whose pace destroyed Dantas and Baffoe found Everton free in the box to make it 3-0 before the 20th minute. The cautioned Jay Haddow was then sacrificed, with Jordan Lam coming on and Kitchee reverting to a back four. Just after the half hour mark Kitchee earned a slightly fortunate penalty, with Leandro pulled down by Wu Chun-ming. This penalty was converted by Martin Merquelanz, for his first Kitchee goal to pull one back. But Lee Man's dominance continued, with Everton and Gigauri both going close as Kitchee were all over the place.

Captain Tan Chun-lok, who was also booked in the first half, was withdrawn at half time, with Juninho replacing him. He added some energy to Kitchee's attack, almost scoring within a couple of minutes of coming on. Adrian couldn't quite divert a header in, and Dudu cleared inside the six yard box, as Kitchee looked more likely to score. But in the closing stages Merquelanz gave away a silly freekick for handball, not realising the ball was still live, and Dudu headed in. Juninho had one last effort to score, as he headed wide.

Fan feedback

Fans were largely disappointed to lose the prospect of going invincible, although with the league already confirmed none were overly upset. It was natural that the side were going to reduce the intensity, and Calderon did give minutes to fringe players at the end. But the mistakes of the League Cup were repeated here, with Dantas proving far too slow, and the back three being outplayed by the pace and power of Everton and Noah Baffoe. As we said in our report following the League Cup, this needs addressing in the summer. Even with Jason Kam's pace returning to the backline, there were still issues. Although as Calderon said post-match, this team are champions for a reason.

Yet again Lee Man's decision to go for three centre backs challenged Kitchee, as a team so reliant on crossing this season struggled to get much going. The penalty was fortunate, and a lot of Kitchee's time on the ball was not in attacking areas. Kitchee also picked up six yellow cards to Lee Man's one, although some of the decisions left a fair bit to be desired. That being said, it would be lazy to blame the officiating for Kitchee's defeat. With the invincible season out of reach maybe we see more fringe players used- Saturday saw Chan Shing-chun and Seb Buddle both have decent cameos as the game was already lost.

What's next

North District next Saturday, 3pm in Tai Po. The Championship group seems to have been designed with no clear structure, with teams having a random assortment of home, away and neutral fixtures. We anticipate Riera and Beattie to remain out, and we believe Kitchee have a few players suspended for yellow card accumulation- Jay Haddow, Kendy and Tan Chun-lok. Hopefully the boys can bounce back

Please follow us on social media to stay up to date with the latest Kitchee news. We are at over 600 followers on Instagram and are at over 400 on Facebook. Facebook Instagram

Photos by Kitchee Instagram Facebook

Thanks to Scoop for the photos. Find his work linked below and go and follow

Scoop Facebook Instagram

Highlights