SIPG were seconds away from moving into a three-way tie, level on 16 points, at the top of the standings with Guangzhou Evergrande and Guangzhou R&G but Ding's goal scuppered those hopes. "We had a pretty good performance over the 90 minutes and a draw was not consistent with that. Those results mean the pair are level on 16 points from the first seven games of the campaign, with Evergrande ahead with a better goal difference. "I can't say that we are increasing the level of our performance," said Scolari, despite seeing his team win their fourth game in a row in all competitions. "You could see that in the first four rounds our opponents were strong sides such as Shanghai SIPG, Shandong and R&F.

Source: The Star April 30, 2017 15:11 UTC