The Boss Discussed Another Frustrating Stalemate On The Road, As The Blues Rued Missed Chances Against Hyderabad On Friday Night…
His thoughts on the result…
It was a frustrating night for me and my players, because it was a good opportunity to get the three points and go to the top of the table, given that we were leading from the opening minutes. We were not good enough to add to our goal and when you’re only 1-0 up, these things happen.
We have seen that a lot of times in football. Even until the very last moment of a game, anything can happen. I must congratulate Hyderabad because they tried really hard and we weren’t able to stop them from scoring the goal which gave them a point.
On being asked if he was shocked by the outcome…
I am frustrated, yes, but I am not shocked. I have been in the football industry all my life, so I have seen this a lot of times. Sometimes it works in your favour and sometimes, like today, it works against you. You can see that Hyderabad lost the points in injury time last week, and today they won a point in injury time.
In football, everyone is professional. Well, most people are professional; not the referees – the referees are a disaster. There was a penalty that wasn’t given, then there was a second red card that was also not given. It really is a disaster week after week, but we’ve been talking about the referees a lot so we’ll move on with the rest.
In the last minutes of the game, we saw Hyderabad put in a lot of extra effort. They pushed up into the box, with their long balls and second balls, they won the throw-ins and a few free-kicks. We know it’s completely normal, but we weren’t able to add to our lead and that cost us.
On his side’s finishing in front of goal…
We have the national team strikers playing in our attack, and we could score only one. It was an easy one because it came from a transition that left the other team in a difficult position. It’s something that India has to improve in. Our foreign striker injured, so he can’t play. Our Indian strikers are professional and worked really hard and tried their best, but they weren’t getting a good amount of balls in the final third and our finishing should have been better.
