preview: KL City V terengganu

With one circuit left after this one, Sunday's meeting between fourth-placed KL City and fifth-placed Terengganu carries real weight in the fight for a top-six finish and a place in the play-off round. KL City's 23 points give them a six-point cushion over their opponents, but with only two matches remaining in the regular season to Terengganu's three, that gap is narrower in practice than it looks on paper, and a Terengganu win here would leave KL City needing to see out the closing weeks carefully to secure 4th place.

The sides have already met once this season, KL City winning 5-2 back in Circuit 4, Dinesh Kumar and Nurhan Danish among the scorers in a result built on the kind of contribution senior figures have provided all season for a squad still working through the depth issues head coach Jerry Dinesh Pireira has spoken about candidly. Dodie Al Fareq's emergence as a reliable source of goals since that meeting has given KL City a further attacking option, one that was not fully in evidence when the sides last played.

Terengganu arrive having just put nine goals past PFA Odin Sarawak, a result built on the kind of expansive, attacking approach that has defined their season, Alif Mat Amin's continued goalscoring form the clearest thread running through it. That same willingness to commit players forward has occasionally left them exposed at the other end, a factor that will matter against a KL City side capable of scoring in bunches of their own when their attacking players click.

For KL City, victory would put real distance between themselves and the chasing pack with only one game in the regular season remaining after this. For Terengganu, anything less than a win narrows their margin for error considerably heading into the season's final weeks. They  know a top-six finish is still there to be won or lost in matches exactly like this one.