Interim Coach Naushad Moosa Spoke To Us After The Blues’ Defeat Of Mumbai City FC, Team Tactics, Gave Us An Update On Cleiton Silva’s Injury And More…

On the game and the early goal…

It was very important for the team to know that the only way to win these three games was to play together as a team, and they showed that against Mumbai. They play with a high defensive line and we planned to capitalize on that with counter-attacks. The early goal did surprise us, but it was good to get that to begin with.

On the playoffs…

Our hopes of getting a playoff spot were never gone. We will keep trying until it is out of our hands. Looking at the other teams’ results, there are some possibilities for us. We have to stay positive, keep playing the way we played last night and hope for the best.

On Cleiton’s injury…

Cleiton (Silva) was ruled out of the last game with an injury and he felt that pain at the end and that was the only reason why we decided to take him off. He also has a sore hamstring, so we had to be careful and give him rest.

On Gurpreet’s long punts…

We analyzed how Mumbai play with a very high line and press from the front. The idea was to get the ball in behind their defence and make use of the space with the speed of Udanta (Singh), Sunil (Chhetri) and Ashique (Kuruniyan).

On Chhetri’s influence…

Sunil is the captain and leader. He keeps motivating the players all the time. You can see the frustration in him sometimes, when the team is not playing so well. He’s a very important part of the club and you saw how he was leading from the front throughout the game last night.