1. What are your expectations for your club in the season ahead?
I’m hoping for an improvement on last season's 8th place finish that’s for sure! The team slumped badly after Christmas and were starting to calculate how many wins we’d need to stay out of the relegation fight. We went through a stage where we never knew who was going to be sat in the dugout from one week to the next, it was a revolving door of coaches, this was beginning to show on the pitch. Sure enough, Jadet was parachuted back in again for his 48th spell, to steady the ship until the end of the season.
2. How have your pre-season preparations gone?
Port won the preseason Leo cup played down in Songkhla and have been ticking over well in friendlies under new coach Scott Cooper. One of my friends lives in Roi Et and used to have a season ticket at Ubon, he speaks highly of that period when Scott took Ubon from T3 to T1. He didn’t say it was pretty to watch, but it was effective. I’d take that about now after the last few rudderless seasons. I think Port have been crying out for more structure on the training pitch and tactically, for a long time. He is the first foreign coach we’ve had since Wada (Japan) in 2016.
3. What are your thoughts on your team's opening four fixtures?
We are starting at home against newly promoted Lamphun Warriors, following that we have a tough trip to BG, then another winnable home match with Prachuap and a trip to Tero. I think a minimum of 7 points from the first four games is reasonable.
4. What do you make of your new signings?
We raided Nong Bua for their centre-half Airton and big centre forward Hamilton Soares. Airton didn’t exactly endear himself to Port fans last season, being sent off for spitting in the ear of Sergio Suarez but Hamilton was the main man for Nong Bua last season.
I don’t know too much about the new Brazilian winger (Negueba), but I see that he’s played in Korea a little bit the last few years. Watching him in the friendly the other day, he seemed to sit around the centre circle spraying passes rather than go on any mazy runs, I still think he’ll be used as a winger once the season starts proper.
Gustav Sahlin is another Thai-Swede that has been bought in, the 4th one in the squad now with Kevin, Dolah and William, I haven’t seen enough of him yet, he had a brief run out in the friendly against Customs yesterday.
We’ve also added a new Iraqi-Danish right-back called Putros. I saw a few clips of him on YouTube, it looks like he likes to get up and down. The most recent addition is midfielder Ben Davis from Oxford United, he spent a couple of years in the Fulham youth system without breaking through, I don’t think he had any game time at Oxford last year, barring being on the bench in the occasional Papa Johns Cup game (Formerly the LDV/Checkatrade etc). For the cynics, this looks like another signing based more on Instagram mileage for the club than footballing skill. That said, he’ll probably still be an upgrade on some of our home grown Thai players, he looked quite tidy on the ball in our final friendly. I’m interested to see how he does when we get into the nitty gritty.
Hamilton is the signing that sticks out, he helped make Nong Bua a surprise package last season, Port have been crying out for a big scary-foreign-striker for years, it’s been a poisoned chalice for the previous incumbents. Please… pretty please… let this one work out.
5. And what about the players you've let go?
Notable departures, Korean midfielder Go has gone (!), also Thai midfielder “Chopper” Siwakorn has moved to Customs. Both guys had been with us for maybe too many years, Thai National keeper Kawin was with us for the second leg last season after a long time abroad but alas he didn’t stick around. At times, he looked like the most competent Thai keeper we’d ever seen at Port, barring one moment at Ratchaburi which will be fodder for the Danny Bakers “Own Goals and Gaffs” Christmas DVD. We also released Salvadorian striker Nelson Bonila, he never really hit the same heights for us as he did at Bangkok Utd (a la Boskovic!).
6. Which players will have the most impact this season?
The previously mentioned Hamilton Soares, we’re also hoping to see more of William. He’s a young Thai-Swedish midfielder who has broken into the Thai U23 team, already becoming a bit of a cult hero at Port, although a bit too feisty at times. Phillip Roller had a good season last year, cut short by a bad knee injury. It looks like he’ll still be out for a while. Up top, Teerasak is starting to break through, competent Thai strikers are rarer than hen's teeth, but he started to chip in with a few goals towards the end of last season.
7. If you could bring back one of your club's former coaches, who would it be?
It was before my time, but a lot of the foreign Port fans speak highly of Gary Stevens. Alas, he was unable to stop Ports slide into Division 2 in 2015. None of our former coaches from 2016 - 2022 really have a better CV than the new occupant of the hot seat.
8. If you could give your current head coach one piece of advice, what would it be? And your owners?
I’m hoping that Scott is given the chance to mould the team as he wants, and actually gets the whole of this season to do it. However, in the six years I’ve followed Port, only Jadet has managed to get through a season from beginning to end in 2018.
Most of my advice to the owner isn’t printable, no matter how many times I have redrafted it, the best I could manage is this: What would be nice is to let the players and the coach take centre stage, and for the owner to stay in the background, not be screeching like a fish wife in the team huddle, sitting on the bench next to the coach, being on all the posters etc etc…
9. Which home games are you most looking forward to?
If they will actually allow both sets of fans then the answer is Muangthong. However, since 2016, what has tended to happen is that the clubs both see the fixture creeping up and then announce less than 3 days out that away fans are banned. The matches against Buriram, BG and Bangkok United usually draw a big crowd.
10. And which away games are you most looking forward to?
Lamphun Warriors - a new team I haven’t been too yet. If that fixture is at the weekend, I’ll be looking to take that one in. Just down the road are Lampang so I would like to try and fit that one in too.
Of all the weekends away I did last season, Prachuap was a fantastic place for a relaxing beach holiday, a shame we had to spoil it by going to the bloody football (which we lost 1-0 to a relegation threatened Prachuap).
11. What do you think of your club's new kits?
Since we got with Ari, not only have the shirts been better, they’ve even managed to get them into the shops before the start of the season too! We launched our new shirt a week ahead of the new season this year, I can’t say the home shirt is really growing on me yet, it looks really cheap close up, but it’s still better than the stuff Grand Sport were churning out up to 2020. Although the home shirt has left me feeling cold, the new white away shirt with orange and blue trimmings is a great effort, a very mid 90s feel to it. I've been wishing for a white away shirt for a few seasons but we’ve tended to stick with black for the 2nd kit and yellow for the 3rd.
12. Who are your favourites to win the league?
The deck will always be heavily stacked in Burirams favour, unless they somehow mess up again. I don’t know how much we can read in their Charity Shield defeat to BG.
13. Who else do you think can challenge?
The only other close challengers again, will probably be coming from either BG or Bangkok United. I’d like to see Port try and tuck in to 4th spot, edging out Muangthong or Chiang Rai.
14. Who is going down?
It could be a bad case of “Second season” syndrome for Nong Bua without Hamilton, unless they have somehow managed to get a better replacement. I think of the promoted teams, Lampang could struggle. For a third team in the zone, I’ll say Prachuap will struggle again.
15. Which team would you most like to beat this season?
Any of the “big 3” of Buriram, BG and Bangkok United because those are the big games that usually define, and kill our season. For total rivalry reasons… Muangthong of course!
16. Who will be this season's surprise package?
I can't say I've been following what other teams have been up to in the transfer window, I'll play it safe and say Lamphun Warriors have a good chance of mixing it up in the top league with Dusit at the helm. They were being linked with Daniel Sturridge in the off season rumour mill - I guess that means they are the most cashed up of the promoted teams.
17. What changes would you make to improve the Thai league?
Stop cancelling the league at short notice for a whole month because the Thai Under 19s have a tournament. Thailand winning the Asian games tournament will probably only vilify their logic in doing this kind of thing though!
Put more games on free to air TV. It’s all well and good being able to watch them on the AIS app on my phone, but I’ve got a perfectly serviceable 40” TV sitting here. When I see videos of games from 2010-2015, stadiums seem to be a lot more busy and boisterous. The Thai FA have slowly managed to screw the pooch on their own product, I can’t blame TRUE one iota for wanting to get the foul stench of this product away from their platform.
Put a stop to clubs being able to relocate so easily, and also clubs being able to use teams as a nursery club to send masses of players on loans. It’s especially iffy when they end up in the same division (I see you Chiang Mai - Chiang Rai!).
VAR in the Thai League still seems to be a total shit show, even by VARs own low standards. In more developed leagues, the process does seem more streamlined at least now, but the delays in Thai League for VAR calls are still far too long.
I think all of these things have contributed to a steady decline in attendances, regardless of any COVID restrictions since 2020.
18. Which visiting fans are you most looking forward to seeing at your stadium?
Last season I actually went and stood in the away end with the Nong Bua fans for the last home game of the season. I started keeping an eye on their games after randomly catching them in T2 a few years ago and then they actually went and got promoted to T1. There is something of a friendship between the two sets of fans now after some Port fans died in a minivan accident going up to Nong Bua for a league cup game a few years ago. When we went up to Nong Bua for the away game before Christmas, Nong Bua laid on free food for the Port fans.
19. What are your match day superstitions and routine?
I usually try to arrive at the stadium an hour or so before kick-off, catch up with the other “farang” Port fans and have a drink and snack before the game. This was a little bit disrupted last season because all the beer stalls were punted out to the main road due to COVID restrictions. They also banned drums as well. The security at the PAT stadium had zero chill about peoples masks slipping off ever so slightly, or people trying to sit right next to each other. As a result, I enjoyed the away trips more last season, most games I visited away from Bangkok had near enough full capacity stadiums with no COVID restrictions.
Port have just announced they’ll be doing matchday tickets for 50 baht in the first leg - hopefully this will tempt back lapsed fans.
20. Is there anything else you'd like to add?
I’m hoping the change in season calendar has a positive effect in terms of not playing so much through the rainy season. The Thai FA give us so many sticks to beat them with, but this might actually be a good thing. The last couple of seasons have been rotten due to all the various COVID interruptions, here’s hoping we all get back to some kind of normality this season…. as much normality as you get following Thai football anyway!
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