The Spoils Were Shared In A Feisty Encounter At The Fortress, And The Boss Discussed Tactics Key Decisions And More, In The Post-Match Conference…

On what went wrong in the first half…

We have been working hard throughout the season. It’s been a season with a lot of little things happening around the squad. Luisma arrived last week, and after the first training session, he picked up a niggle in the lumbar column, so we didn’t want to force him.

During the week, Xisco and Rahul have not been training because of different circumstances, so we decided to try with a team knowing that we are taking a lot of risk. We are playing at home and we are playing with an advantage so we tried. We are a brave team, and we want to put on a good show for our supporters.

We thought that maybe Kean can fit in the plan at the back, but after some time we saw that he was facing a lot of problems with Slavisa. We changed that with Khabra moving to the back. These things happen and if you don’t try, you will never know. Edmund made his first start tonight, and we know it is not easy for youngsters to stay there and take decisions. He was also doing his best to help the team and at half time I had Rahul and Xisco come in and then Miku.

Miku said that he wants to take his return step-by-step, so we had initially planned to play him for about 15 minutes. With the score 2-0, we negotiated with him at half time and finally it was 30 minutes. We saw that he came on and then Sunil scored and got an assist, so maybe it means something!

On adapting to physicality from opponents…

We always try to keep possession. That’s our plan because we know that they are physical, but it was not working well in the first half. In the second period, when we made some changes, it was our game. I am very happy that we were trying to build up and not getting crazy by pumping the ball up from one side to the other. We showed that with the ball we can do dangerous things.

On the referee’s constant refusal to pull up players for blatant fouls…

For me it’s quite simple; we have to protect the game and we have to take care of these situations. I don’t understand it when there are a lot of risky moments, and there’s no punishment. Albert and Erik were shown yellow cards, and we have absolutely no problem with that. But they almost killed Sunil in the first half, with a tackle to his knee. That’s exactly what happened in Mumbai as well, and once again there was no booking. Xisco had a similar moment, when he was hurt against Mumbai and missed a game, but again there was no card.

We have to protect talented players. I don’t think anybody in India will be happy if we miss Sunil for a period of time, because he got taken out with a dangerous tackle. I said this before the game, that I don’t want to blame the referees and I respect their job, but we have to protect the game. As the game went on, you could see Kerala was doing logical things. I have nothing against them, they were wasting time because they have the lead. That’s football. But in the end, we had just four minutes of injury time and when we got a corner, the referee blew the full-time whistle!