AFC NEWS - We're not there yet, warns Darby

IPOH - Perak head coach Steve Darby is refusing to take anything for granted even though his side moved a step closer to a place in the quarter-finals of the AFC Cup after a 3-0 win over New Radiant on Wednesday.

Midfielder Jorge Munoz grabbed a brace while Razali Omar added a third deep in stoppage time to secure victory and move them on to ten points in Group E.

"I wish I can say that we are in the quarter-finals of the AFC Cup but the truth is we are not there yet," said Darby.

"We picked up the full points tonight as we should since we are playing at home but I felt that our performance was a lot better in the first half when we were playing against 11 men than when we were playing against eight.

"We took our time with the advantage that we had although having said that, I'm just glad that we won the points that we needed."

New Radiant head coach Gerd Zeise in the meantime was shocked with the loss of the three players in one game and insisted that the outcome would have been different had his side retained 11 players on the pitch. New Radiant's task was always going to be difficult after they had Sabah Ibrahim, Ahmad Mohamad and Daniel Mbock all dismissed in the first half.

"I didn't really see what happened and was not too sure about the altercation," said Zeise. "We tried to make a game of it against Perak here and we tried a few things tonight. It was just unfortunate that it did not pan out as planned."

"We would have been very happy with a draw which I believe that we are capable of but in the end this is football and at the end of the day it is how we play for the full 90 minutes of the game which will decide the final outcome."

- Article from AFC Website

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