Substitutes are critical to any football team, ask M'sia Cup winner Steven Tan: Pritam responds to PM's starting lineup analogy

A football team is made up of more than just its starting line-up of players, but also its substitutes and reserves.

This point was made by both Workers' Party (WP) Punggol candidate Harpreet Singh and party Secretary-General Pritam Singh during a doorstop at Punggol on May 1, 2025, the last day of campaigning for GE2025.

Earlier in the day, at the May Day rally, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong described the potential loss of ministers from his cabinet with a football analogy.

He said that if a football team loses three or four members from its starting line-up, the reserves would be able to play, but the team wouldn't function at the same level.

He then said that similarly, if the Cabinet loses a few members, it would not be a team as effective as it would have been.

Remember Steven Tan: Pritam Singh

Pritam Singh responded, saying:

"No football team enters the pitch with 11 players. The substitutes are a critical part of any football team.

Just ask Steven Tan, [from] our Malaysia Cup days. Every player is an integral element of the team. It doesn't just plug and play, sometimes the formation has to change.

You're playing 4-4-2, suddenly you have to play 4-3-3, and you don't have the right player on the pitch for that formation. You bring the sub out. This idea of only playing with 11 players is frankly not a very good football analogy."

PAP's 70th anniversary remarks and Pritam Singh's response

Pritam Singh added that the idea of losing three or four ministers is not new, and that PM Wong previously brought it up during the 70th Anniversary of the PAP in Nov. 2024.

During the speech, PM Wong said:

"We saw in the last GE how many GRCs and SMCs were closely contested.

A modest swing in popular votes against the PAP can lead to very different electoral outcomes. We are talking very possibly the loss of another three or four GRCs.

That means we lose another four or five ministers, or a quarter of the Cabinet.

We will end up with a much weaker government; with far less ability to solve the problems facing our people and our country, at a time when the world is becoming more uncertain and troubled."

Pritam Singh said that he had addressed it in his message to all voters, and encouraged people to read his response to that.

The message, which is printed in WP campaign booklets, said that the PAP is trying to convey a sense of "crisis" that it may lose a quarter of Cabinet.

"But voters would remember that the loss in 2011 of former Ministers George Yeo and Lim Hwee Hua, then Minister-to-be Ong Ye Kung and Speaker-to-be Zainul Abidin, and in 2020 of former Minister Ng Chee Meng, did not result in an organisational catastrophe for Singapore.

Life went on.

Indeed, the PAP is not lacking in talent to the extent that other elected MPs have been unable to fill the breach."

Party renewal and benches

In response to another question on party renewal, Pritam Singh said that in order to grow, WP needs to bring in people who are "better than us", and that is incumbent on him.

To continue the football analogy, Pritam Singh said the PAP has a "deep bench", easily able to field 10 reserves, whereas the WP has two reserves by metaphorical comparison.

Gan Kim Yong in Punggol's Northshore

Referring to Gan's promise to personally oversee the Northshore area of Punggol if elected, Harpreet Singh that he likes Gan, and he's very pleasant, as he made clear in his second rally speech.

Their paths have crossed many times during the campaign, and all their interactions have been "absolutely wonderful."

"At the same time", Harpreet Singh said, "we know DPM Gan is going to be busy."

He referenced the task force the government set up to deal with the impact of the Trump Tariffs and the trade war, to which Gan has been appointed as chair.

Harpreet Singh said that if elected, he will be "practically full-time on the ground" so residents can be assured that he will be devoting his time both to their municipal concerns, and their concerns as well as the concerns of ordinary Singaporeans in Parliament.

Asking questions is not a personal attack: Harpreet Singh

Harpreet Singh also added that when Singaporeans ask questions of their government, they should not be taken as personal attacks.

Singaporeans want accountability from their leaders, they expect accountability. And loving your country means being ready to step up and ask all the difficult questions of your leaders. And we must never, never treat difficult questions as personal attacks."

He added that they will continue to ask difficult questions, but not make personal attacks.

Top image by Eileen Lee.