Home United forward Ken Ilso is hoping to return to scoring ways when his side take on Balestier Khalsa in a Great Eastern-Yeo's S.League clash at the Toa Payoh Stadium on Monday evening.
Ilso scored four times in the first four games of the season but suffered an injury which saw him missing a total of seven games.
Making his return with a cameo in the 3-0 defeat to Tampines Rovers just before the league went on a two-month break, he subsequently played the full 90 minutes in the two draws against DPMM and Warriors FC in the past couple of weeks.
While the 28-year-old failed to find himself on the scoresheet, he was influential in creating the two goals in the last-gasp 2-2 draw against the Warriors last Thursday -- firstly squaring an intelligent ball across the box for Azhar Sairudin to finish early in the first half, before producing a delightful free kick for Abdil Qaiyyim to head home in the dying seconds of the game.
Speaking to ESPN FC, Ilso believes he is now well-poised to start hitting the back of the net again and challenge 12-goal Rafael Ramazotti at the top of the S.League scoring charts.
"I can feel that my form is going up," said the former Fortuna Dusseldorf man. "It's always nice to be getting amongst the assists apart from scoring goals."
"It has only been two competitive games for me since my injury, so I need to fine-tune the timing in my finishing. The key is to keep training on that aspect and I've been working on it every day to improve it. I believe the goals will come soon."
It has been a frustrating season for the Protectors who have claimed just three wins and six draws in 14 games as they find themselves languishing at seventh position, 10 points behind leaders Warriors FC.
Ilso believes the title is now realistically out of their grasp and wants them to focus on correcting their error-prone ways in the remaining games.
"Right now, we're not thinking about the title," he said unabashedly. "We haven't got as many points as we should have, so it's more important to work on our defensive discipline and finishing in front of goal.
"Against DPMM, we were not satisfied because we did not create any chances. Against the Warriors, we created many chances and should have been leading by 2-0 at half time, but we made a couple of mistakes which they took advantage of.
"Even though we fought hard with 10 men and eventually got the equalizer, we all felt frustrated after the game because we had the feeling we could have won."
Despite being displeased with recent results, Ilsø is keen to focus on the positives as they take on fourth-place Balestier on Monday.
"Instead of looking at how Balestier play, we should be focusing on our own skills," he emphasized. "We should be building on from the last game (against the Warriors) where we played good combination football, making runs for each other and really taking the game to the opponents."
Balestier Khalsa Probable Lineup: Zaiful Nizam (GK)(C), Yusiskandar Yusop, Hanafi Salleh, Igor Cerina, Ho Wai Loon, Fadhil Noh, Emir Lotinac, Poh Yifeng, Tarik Cmajcanin, Zulkiffli Hassim, Miroslav Kristic
Home United Probable Lineup: Shahril Jantan, Ang Zhi Wei, Abdil Qaiyyim, R. Aaravin, Sirina Camara, Juma'at Jantan (C), Yasir Hanapi, Azhar Sairudin, Ambroise Begue, Kamel Ramdani, Ken Ilso