Muang Thong United coach Uthai Boonmoh praised the fighting spirit of his men after the Kirins recovered from a two-goal deficit to draw hosts Nakhon Pathom United 2-2 in a Thai League 1 game on Friday night.
Leslie Ablorh put Nakhon Pathom ahead in the 31st and was on target again for the home team a minute before the break.
Struggling former champions Muang Thong recovered near the midway mark of the second half when Willian Popp put them on the road to recovery. Stefan Scepovic grabbed the equaliser six minutes from time to steal a point for the Kirins.
Uthai rued his team's defensive blunders after the match.
"In fact, we were expecting three points from this game but made some costly errors to concede two goals in the first half," said Uthai. "As I have said before, there are no easy games in this league and it isn't easy to claim a point from any game.
"Today, we showed great fighting spirit in rallying from two goals down.
"Every game is of great significance to us now. We hope that we will be able to repeat our performance of the last season when we recovered from the bottom half to finish fourth in the league."
Nakhon Pathom coach, Akbar Nawas said: "We were unlucky that we did not get the third goal, though we created a lot of chances. If that had happened we would have won the match.
"The competition has become tougher in the second leg as one can see that teams are not far apart from each other in the table."
Meanwhile, Bangkok United's title credentials face another stiff test when they face star-studded BG Pathum United this evening.
The Angels, who lost to J-League side Yokohama F Marinos in an AFC Champions League last-16 round battle, were overtaken by defending champions Buriram United at the top of Thai League 1 and they will be eager to keep alive their challenge for a first-ever title.
The Rabbits will have the services of stars like Chanathip Songkrasin, Sarach Yooyen and Danilo Alves available for the match.
In the other matches today, Chonburi will host Sukhothai and Ratchaburi will be at home to Uthai Thani.