Thailand coach Mano Polking is "happy" in the wake of his team's convincing 4-0 victory over a "very aggressive" Myanmar side in their second AFF Suzuki Cup Group A outing in Singapore on Saturday night.
The War Elephants were lacklustre in their opening day 2-0 win over minnows Timor Leste last Sunday and the five-time champions' inability to convert scoring opportunities had left Polking worried.
On Saturday night, veteran striker Teerasil Dangda led the way as the Thais stormed to the top of the pool table with two wins from as many matches.
BG Pathum United striker Teerasil scored on either side of the break to go joint top on the all-time AFF Suzuki Cup goalscoring chart with further goals from substitutes Worachit Kanitsribumphen and Supachok Sarachart rounding out the victory.
Polking said he was delighted by the win and also paid tribute to Teerasil for his history-making goals.
"We're very happy with the performance of the team, we made progress and controlled the game, the midfield especially, with players that are strong on the ball and created more clear chances," said Polking.
"As for Teerasil, he brings everything that a striker needs in terms of technique, especially a finish. I joke with him that he's not so young anymore but you can still see the amazing quality he has."
"We have seen Myanmar before and they are very aggressive every time when we [Thailand] face them.
"We saw many tackles which were not intended to win the ball.
"But I think I am okay as we could control our game well. We knew that they are aggressive and this is the thing that we had prepared for during training."
Myanmar coach Antoine Hey said: "We are disappointed by the result but not by the performance of our players, they're doing what they can at this point in time and tried everything possible.
"Again tonight we had no central defenders -- we had a striker playing at left-back. We had more Covid issues as well so the players are doing everything they can.
"Also, my players swear that it was not a penalty [converted by Teerasil]. It changed the game, so if this was the case then we can say that today Thailand were lucky."
Teerasil said the War Elephants had upped the standard of their game in the Myanmar game.
"Today's game, I am quite pleased with it as it looked much better than the first game. However, there are still some moves that are not running smooth.
"We had learned our lesson and tried not to repeat the mistakes we committed in the first game against Timor Leste. We made adjustments and they worked.
"I hope we will keep on improving.
"We will do our best and develop our team, improve the weak points and do it better in our remaining matches in the tournament."
Thailand will next play against the Philippines tomorrow at 4.30pm (Thai time).
