J1 Matchday 15
The return of The Scorpion. Love it.Photo from FC Tokyo Official Website |
All those injuries meant we were still without Naohiro Ishikawa, and reserve goalkeeper Hitoshi Shiota joined him in the treatment room after damaging his ankle at training, which meant Ryotaro Hironaga came into the squad, but there were two pieces of positive news, with Kenichi Kaga starting at centre back and Sotan Tanabe coming in on the left side of midfield, their first starts in over two months. Tanabe replaced Kazuma Watanabe, whose credit from his hat trick against Tosu ran out, with Lucas starting up front.
Cerezo had the better chances in the first half, but the usually efficient Kim Bo Kyung fluffed his lines when played clean through on the right on two seperate ocassions from around the half hour mark: firstly he crossed just out of the reach of Yoichiro Kakitani's lunge when a goal seemed certain; and then he made a right hash of trying to chip Shuichi Gonda, which allowed Masato Morishige to clear.
Just before halftime Kakitani, who we know well from his time with Tokushima in J2, set up defender Daisuke Takahashi on the left side of the box, but Gonda got out well and deflected the ball away with his left boot. We had two notable chances, Lucas screwed across the face of goal from Yuhei Tokunaga's excellent cut-back, and in the 43rd minute Kaga advanced and lashed goalwards, forcing the Cerezo 'keeper to palm the ball out for a corner.
As the second half got going we continued to struggle to really open up the visitors. Hideto Takahashi seemed to be doing the work of two people as his midfield partner Hasegawa spent another game on the fringes of the play, and the two wide players, Tanabe and Tatsuya Yazawa, were unable to influence proceedings.