MThe match which Mohun Bagan could have easily won and secured the vital 3 points they couldn’t because of their lack of game awareness and terrible game plan.
Mohun Bagan carry forward their horrendous display of defensive transition as they shown in the Durand Cup Final. In that match also Mohun Bagan went ahead with 2 goals advantage in the halftime but conceded 2 goals and eventually they have lost the match tie breaker. Yesterday also they conceded 2 goals in the second half after taking 2 goal lead within 35 minutes of the game.
Mohun Bagan fielded 3-5-2 formation yesterday with Ashish Rai as a Wing back in the right flank. The have fielded youngstar Dipendu in the first place of Central Defense alongside Alberto Rodriguez. Subhasish Bose was also there as Left full back. The idea was to cover the wing play of Mumbai in right flank with a specialist player as their defensive midfielders were failed to cover the wings in defensive transition in the previous game in Durand Final. The idea was initially working as Mumbai trying to penetrate from both the wings but their crosses couldn’t connected properly by their strikers as the Central defense area was crowded by Mohun Bagan’s 2 steady Central Defenders. Mumbai started in very brisk fashion and generated several attack within the 5 minutes of the match but when Mohun Bagan midfield settle down the match was evenly poised. Mumbai did score a goal on 4th minute of the game but it was ruled offside. After that Liston Colaco able to penetrate the left hand side of the Mumbai defense and delivered a beautiful minus from the goal line inside the box which eventually deflected by Tiri and causing a own goal on 9th minute of the game (1-0). This was the only occasion where Liston successfully go behind the defense on the left side and able to enter into the box. 2nd goal came on 29th minute as a result of a well planned setpiece which was initially fisted away by Mumbai Goalkeeper Lachempa but not clear properly and landed on the feet of Jason Cumming who saw Ashish and guided the ball to him. Ashish Rai delivered a long aerial cross deep into the far post which was headed down by Greg Stewart towards Alberto who thunder his left footed strike into the goal (2-0).
In the second half Mohun Bagan did get a massive chance on the 49th minute of the game when Jason Cummings delivered a defense splitting through ball for Dimi Petratos but couldn’t able to bit Valpuia even though he was ahead of him when the ball was delivered. This actually show the lack of speed in Mohun Bagan upfront. Their 3 attacking foreigners Dimi, Jason and Greg are technically very good but their speed is so low that it was difficult to go behind the defense of Mumbai for Mohun Bagan. Apart from that chance of Petratos Mohun Bagan couldn’t able to break the defense of Mumbai. Although in the second half Mumbai did played with very high line defense but lack of speed cost our team taking further lead in the second half. It seems that Coach Molina was not very keen on taking further lead and press more on the inexperience Mumbai defense in the second half. It was not that Mumbai defense played better without Akash Mishra who was inured and Rahul Bheke who left the club for BFC, Mumbai defense was also vulnerable. Yes, experienced Tiri was there alongwith Mehtab but inexperienced Sahil Panwar and Valpuia were very fragile in the wings. Last season under Ferrando and Habas Mohun Bagan played brilliant pressing and counter pressing football. With Manvir and Liston in the wings and Sahal and Thapa in the midfield they did create immense pressure towards opponent defense. But today it was missing. Only one occasion Mohun Bagan seriously press the Mumbai defense and they fumbled. But strangely enough Mohun Bagan never tried that any further.
Eventually Mumbai scored a scrappy goal from a corner which was obstructed and deflected by Subhasish but unfortunately landed on the feet of Tiri who then redeem himself after his own goal on 70th minute with a snap shot from a narrow space and eventually deflected by Ashish Rai’s failed attempt to enter the net (2-1). The second goal was hurt us more as it shows the lack of game awareness of our players. Ashish Rai on the right hand side with acre of space delivered a aimless ball towards Dimi where 4 Mumbai Defenders were present. He could have easily held the ball and distribute to the midfiled and secure the position of his team. Mumbai intercepted and then Taher Krouma delivered a beautiful ball towards Noufal in the wing. As Ashish Rai was out of position it was difficult for Thapa to cater the threat and eventually Noufal minus it to Krouma who silently enter into the box and just guided the grounder on the second post (2-2).
That was not the first time Mumbai manage to penetrate into the box and delivered a minus. Our defensive midfielders were caught out on several occasion it’s just that Mumbai is not strong enough to generate that much attack through out the game. Lot’s of work to be done for this Mohun Bagan team specially the in mentality needs to be changed. It was really surprising for us with a star studded attacking line up how a team could play with such defensive mentality. If you need to play the defensive football you got to have a specific player for that and those players sat there on the bench for whole 90 minutes and saw their team lost the vital 3 points in opening game. Yes, we know it’s a opening match and only 5th match of the senior team so far but if we continue to do these mistakes through out the season it will be difficult for us. Even in the press conference Molina also shown his concern for the defensive mistakes. We can only hope but nothing else that the team will improve it’s defensive transition in future games.
