Two goals in the space of 60 seconds shortly before half time were Buriram United's undoing as they lost 2-0 to Jiangsu Sainty at the Nanjing Olympic Sports Center.
There was an upbeat tempo to the start of the game with both sides content to pass the ball on the deck.
Theerathorn whipped in a couple of early free kicks from the right which Deng Xiofei in the Jiangsu goal had to be alert to grab.
Suree had to be vigilant on 13 minutes to make a last ditch block following a neat series of passes from the home side.
Zhou Yun was lucky not to be red carded five minutes later when he made an ugly sliding lunge at Kai Hirano. The referee leniently let him off with a yellow card in my opinion.
Siwarak's first save came in the 24th minute after Sun Ke had neatly turned Theeratorn on the edge of the box, but his shot was saved by the Buriram keeper.
In the 33rd minute Bustos spurned a great opportunity to open the scoring when Jiangsu had pushed their defenders up for a free kick. Buriram broke quickly from the free kick and Hirano released Bustos clear through on goal, but the Chilean's effort was weakly struck straight at the keeper.
As the game looked to be heading into the break even, Buriram were hit with a double sucker punch in the 42nd and 43rd minute.
First up, Lu Bofei found the bottom corner of the net after Siwarak had parried away a Ren Hang shot, and 60 seconds later with Buriram still reeling from conceding the opening goal, Sun Ke headed home Ji Xiang's cross to make it 2-0.
Buriram kept plugging away, but it was rather scrappy after the interval.
Carmelo Gonzalez pulled a shot wide for the Thai side while Sun Ke had a goal ruled out for offside as Jiangsu happily watched the clock tick down.
Haimdi Salindi thought he'd added a third for the Nanjing team in the 84th minute, but his header was blocked on the line by Anawin.
However, five minutes later Anawin was heading to the locker room after collecting two yellow cards. There were no arguments as the substitute slowly trudged off the field.
It was a deserved win for Jiangsu Sainty on the night, yet it all could have been so different had Bustos scored in the first half when the score was 0-0.
Next up for Buriram United in the AFC Champions League are back-to-back home matches against Jiangsu Sainty and Vegalta Sendai. Two wins would have the Thunder Castle right back on track.
Man of the Match: Sun Ke
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