Six-goal Valley fail to satisfy Chan as Sun Hei stay level

'It's the performance that matters and we can do a lot better'

It's 10 down, eight to go for title contenders Sun Hei and Happy Valley, who both eased back into their First Division campaigns with convincing wins at Hong Kong Stadium yesterday after six weeks of League Cup matches.

With eight games to go in the 18-match programme, it is Valley who hold a slender five goal-difference advantage over their rivals. Both are on 25 points.

A 6-1 mauling of bottom-of-the-table Fire Services hardly deserves being labelled as a below-par performance from Valley, but that is how coach Chan Hung-ping described it.

'I'm really not concerned with how many goals we score - it's the performance that matters and we can do a lot better,' said Chan.

Valley scored four of their haul in the last 20 minutes of the match when Fire Services, fielding a team with an average age of 30, suddenly wilted with fatigue. Slovakian winger Martin Jancula completed a hat-trick in the late flurry. Other Valley scorers were Lee Wai-man, Cheung Sai-ho, and powerful Cameroonian striker Roger Batoum, who netted his fifth in seven games since arriving from the Romanian second division.

'We were facing a tight defence in the first half and although we managed one early goal, it was poor to keep playing through the middle like they did. They should have kept it simple. They are not reading the game and judging the situation.