In all four of these thrilling matches, the moments of victory and equalization came after the 80th minute, a testament to the grueling nature of scoring.
Liu Yiming broke the opponent's goal with a header.
Against Wuhan Sanzhen, Seaport still couldn't get rid of the loopholes in set-piece defense - Sanzhen broke the deadlock with two consecutive headers by Liu Yiming in the opening match.
After that, San Zhen retreated and the game entered into Harbor's possession mode, with 75% of the total possession rate, but the shooting efficiency was very low, which finally made Harbor gain the third "scoreless" game of the season.
In the first phase of the league's 10 matches, Leko's team has scored only 10 goals, a figure that is tied for the league's bottom five, the same as Dalian Ren and Chengdu Rongcheng, and obviously can't be explained only by the absence of core foreign aiders.
To know that Dalian is a full Chinese class to play, seaport local players lineup plus Paulinho and N'Diaye two foreign aid, and ultimately the average field goal is only 1 goal, technical and tactical aspects of the lack of is the more critical reason. Harbor skipper Leko.
Puzzling tactical choices
"It was a great game against one of the strongest teams in the league, with a well-organized offense, solid defense, and quite capable coaching. We played well against such an opponent, taking the initiative on the field and full of confidence to win."
Leko's comments in the post-game press conference rang a little hollow.
In the case of this game, Leko played Oscar at the back of the organization - the Brazilian star was away from the central attacking position - and the original expectation that Oscar would be able to bring direct help to the team in the game was dashed.
Looking at the 10 games throughout the first period, Leko's usual mindset was me-first, with possession pressure play in every game.
However, in the absence of Oscar and Muy, such tactics are not only inefficient on the attacking end, but also often counterattacked by the opponent on the defensive end.
The second round of the Shanghai Derby is a classic case in point, where the seaport looked futile in both offense and defense, and was lucky to get a point.
Lecco's choices of key players' positions in key matches have often been criticized by fans, such as replacing Xu Xin often around the 60th minute, or playing Stanley Wong as a trailing center back.
In the two crucial matches against Samchun to decide the ranking, Lecco trusted too much on the young Chen Chunxin in the first round; and didn't arrange Oscar's position correctly in the second round, and these two losses left Seaport completely left behind by the first group - apart from being pulled 12 points away from Samchun, Seaport is also as much as 8 points behind the second-placed Taishan.
It is important to realize that the Dalian region as a whole is a relatively simple journey, while Taishan is located in the Haikou region has more strong opponents, the actual distance between the two sides, much more than the 8 points shown on the books.
Oscar was put in the wrong position.
Can a change of command be the cure?
Looking at the current points tally and team form, it would not be an exaggeration to say that Harbour is completely out of the running for this year's league title, and Leko has been the target of attacks from fans and media in the court of public opinion in the meantime.
In the post-match conference, journalists outside the quarantine area asked the media group if Lecco would be worried about being dropped, but somehow the moderator didn't throw the question at the Belgian, which somewhat alleviated some of the awkwardness.
Regarding the future, Lecco said after the race that he will use the break to analyze and summarize next, "The last two months have been difficult for us, and I'm going to see how to get better next. What to do after that is clear to us, it's impossible to say here exactly, but we will definitely need a dose of good medicine."
And many fans joked that the cure should be Lecco's dismissal.
Whether or not to change the manager, however, needs to be considered by the club in a comprehensive manner - the SIPG group has had two features on the managerial issue since the 2015 season when it operated the team independently: from Eriksson, Andre Villas-Boas, and Pereyra to Lecco, the club has always employed foreign managers, which means that the option of a local manager to put out a fire halfway through the season has been almost ruled out out outright.
Meanwhile the Harbour Club has yet to make a mid-season managerial change, with Lecco's first three predecessors, all of whom left automatically when their contracts expired at the end of the season.
Indeed, there is also a cost of risk in sacking Leko, with the club having to have an alternative manager in place, as well as ensuring that the new manager can quickly step into the role.
Of course, there would be the embarrassment of keeping the Belgian and having the season sink completely on that - and now, the time has come for the management to make a decision.
Apart from the marquee issue, the seaport also needs to deal with the issue of foreign aid.
After Lopez's departure, the team has two empty foreign aid slots, and the team should sign suitable immediate combatants to strengthen its strength in the summer window.
