Kitchee boss turns attention to Champions League as team crush Football Club

Alex Chu Chi-kwong had the luxury of experimenting with tactics and personnel as Kitchee cruised to victory over Hong Kong Football club on Sunday.

Head coach Chu’s team were 6-0 up after 30 minutes, with South Korean forward Kim Shin-wook netting a 10-minute hat-trick to emphatically break his scoring duck after a February transfer from Lion City Sailors.

Football Club ended the match with striker Paul Ngue in goal after an injury for 38-year-old stand-in Issey Maholo, playing his first competitive football since May 2021.

Chu, who said there was no immediate news over the mooted signing of Austrian forward Jakob Jantscher, saw his side take the lead when Kim thrashed home from close range after 14 minutes. Tan Chun-lok tapped in two minutes later for a goal on his full debut.

Kim beat Maholo to Ruslan Mingazov’s hoisted 21st-minute cross to score his second, and the 35-year-old, making his first league start for the club, scored from the spot after Martin Fray hauled down Sartori in the box.

“This is just the beginning for me,” Kim told the Post. “I am around 80-per cent fit. I didn’t play in the first XI last season, but I know my teammates better and have practised how we play.”

The striker is a two-times AFC Champions League winner – with Ulsan Hyundai in 2012 and Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors four years later – and that competition is uppermost in Chu’s mind.

After Mikael teed up Mingazov for a delicate finish and then hammered into the corner from 18 yards, a repeat of Kitchee’s 10-0 win over the same opponents in April 2017 – when Manolo was sent off – looked a distinct possibility.

But Chu opted to ring the changes and even removed defender Helio Goncalves in favour of Juninho, who formed a two-man strike force with Kim.

“I am preparing for the AFC Champions League and sometimes I need to approach the game in a different way, and this [two men upfront] is a game plan for the future,” Chu said.

“We rotated some players [Ogenyi Onazi, Aleksandar Damcevski and Cleiton were left out of the squad altogether] and others needed game time for match fitness.”

Chu additionally revealed he would talk to Hong Kong coach Jorn Andersen about the prospect of releasing 20-year-old left-back Shinichi Chan for the forthcoming Asian Games.

“It is a very tight schedule and I don’t want to overload the players but we are not ruling it out,” he said.

Kitchee lost a measure of rhythm and urgency after half-time but scored again through a Sartori header, on 55 minutes, and Jordon Brown’s own goal with 18 minutes remaining.

The left-back, who is on loan at Football Club from Kitchee, deflected in a cross from substitute Poon Pui-hin and was promptly booked after furiously booting an advertising hoarding behind the goal.

Mahalo was taken off immediately after the goal suffering from what Football Club’s assistant manager Stewart Montgomery said was a “grade 3 concussion”.

Mahalo’s miserable afternoon was compounded by striker Paul Ngue literally taking the shirt off his back to replace the stricken keeper.

Ngue catching crosses and making saves drew the biggest roars of the afternoon from the 975-strong crowd. It was an unsatisfactory sight nonetheless, doing nothing for the Hong Kong Premier League’s wish to be viewed as competitive entity.

Regular keeper Freddie Toomer was married in Sicily on Saturday and Montgomery said: “Neither of our young keepers were available, one was injured and one was travelling.

“We’d not planned for it, the fixtures were out so late, we are semi-pro side and people have commitments.

“Our season isn’t defined by results against the millionaires of the league … but to defend and react to the goals and second balls how we did was criminal.”