Title-chasing Home United will leapfrog leaders and defending champions Albirex Niigata (S) at the S.League summit if they beat Warriors FC at Jalan Besar Stadium on Tuesday night.
Albirex's next S.League game will be at home against Balestier Khalsa 24 hours later. With 11 games to go, the White Swans are just two points above Home and three above Tampines Rovers. Even Warriors FC are not too far behind, trailing by seven points.
Buoyed by their recent run to the Singapore League Cup final, which they lost to an extra-time Tsubasa Sano strike, Warriors captain Shahril Ishak believes a title challenge is not beyond reach.
"We must look at the positives [despite not winning the trophy] ... our performances were decent and everyone can see we played our hearts out," the 33-year-old told the S.League's official website.
"Although Home will be focusing on their upcoming AFC ASEAN zonal final [against Ceres-Negros] and might rest some of their key players against us, we can't be complacent about it.
"Our challenge is to fight for the league title. We have to prove that we are worthy of the title challengers tag."
Home have a hectic schedule ahead with the two-legged AFC Cup ASEAN zonal final against Ceres-Negros and two-legged Singapore Cup quarter-final against Brunei DPMM coming up shortly.
However, winger Faris Ramli is bullish of his team's chances of challenging on three fronts.
"There is no doubt that when everyone is fit and everyone is playing well, we're confident we can take on anyone," the 24-year-old said. "We're not scared of anyone and we don't look at other clubs and think we're miles away from them, far from it.
"Collectively as a squad we worked hard to get there to the zonal final of the AFC Cup; we want to bring joy and restore some pride to Singapore football. We've learnt a lot from the experience so far and that can only help us do better in the upcoming months."
Home will have to play without French left-back Sirina Camara due to his indirect red card in a 2-1 win against Balestier Khalsa earlier this month, while Warriors will miss out on the services of left back Zulfadli Zainal Abidin and midfielder Firdaus Kasman due to accumulating four yellows cards.