S.League

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Albirex Niigata (S) continued their superb form in Singapore's S.League as they walloped Home United 5-2 at the Jurong East Stadium on Saturday night to extend their winning run to 10 matches.

The White Swans raced into a 3-0 lead before the hour mark, but Home threatened to nick a point after pulling it back to 3-2 on 81 minutes. However, Albirex were to score two more goals and run out emphatic winners on the night.

The fans had barely settled into their seats when Tatsuro Inui fired Albirex ahead after just two minutes of play. Reacting quickest to a half-cleared corner, the 27-year-old bent a stupendous 25-yard shot that sailed over the despairing dive of Home goalkeeper Hyrulnizam Juma'at.

The home side continued to dominate proceedings for the remainder of the first half, and it was no surprise that they managed to double the lead just before the half-time whistle.

Hyrulnizam had cleared the ball straight to Atsushi Kawata, before making amends by closing the latter down. The loose ball eventually fell to Inui, who wasted little time in curling home his second goal of the game from close range.

The Home stopper was to pay the price for conceding the two goals as he was replaced by Zulfairuuz Rudy for the second half.

But the 22-year-old had to pick the ball out of his net after just 12 minutes from the restart, as Kawata's cross-shot got an unlucky deflection off Shahrin Saberin before looping in to put Albirex 3-0 up.

Credit to Home, they rallied their troops thereafter and managed to reduce the deficit to just one via two quick-fire goals.

In the 78th minute, Ken Ilso converted from the spot after Faris was bundled down by Atsushi Shirota in the area. Three minutes later, substitute Khairul Nizam produced a delightful back-heel finish from Ambroise Begue's low right-wing cross to send the travelling fans into delirium.

Their joy proved to be short-lived though as Albirex went on to score another two to kill off any hopes of a Home comeback.

Kento Nagasaki floated a stunning 25-yard shot over the hapless Zulfairuuz in the 86th minute, then clipped home from close range after taking down Daichi Ishiyama's left-wing cross a minute later to round off the night's scoring.

A 10th successive victory for Albirex meant the White Swans will go into next Friday's crucial six-pointer with Tampines seven points ahead of the latter, but coach Naoki Naruo is not letting himself get carried away.

"Our next opponent is Tampines and that will be a very difficult game," said the 41-year-old. "We have to focus on that game now before thinking about the championship."

Meanwhile Home assistant coach Robin Chitrakar insisted there are positives to take away despite going three games without a win.

"You can see the boys are fighting very hard and trying their best today," said the 39-year-old. "To come from 3-0 down to trail just 3-2 showed their character.

"They really wanted it; it's just unfortunate that they managed to score again through counter-attacks. We showed that we can play against them. Hopefully we can pick ourselves up for the next game."

Albirex Niigata (S): Yosuke Nozawa (GK, C), Mikiya Yamada, Kento Fujihara, Atsushi Shirota, Naofumi Tanaka, Shuto Inaba, Tomoki Menda, Kento Nagasaki, Tatsuro Inui (Daichi Ishiyama 83'), Atsushi Kawata (Kazuki Mine 89'), Hiroyoshi Kamata (Masaya Jitozono 61')

Home United: Hyrulnizam Juma'at (GK) (Zulfairuuz Rudy 46'), Shamil Sharif, Abdil Qaiyyim, Shahrin Saberin (Sim Teck Yi 71'), Zulfahmi Arifin, Song Uiyoung, Syahiran Miswan (Khairul Nizam 61'), Ambroise Begue, Azhar Sairudin, Faris Ramli, Ken Ilso (C)