Hyderabad FC interim head coach Shameel Chembakath urged for improvements in specific areas following their defeat to Mohun Bagan SG at the Vivekananda
Yuba Bharati Krirangan in the Indian Super League (ISL) match here.
The Mariners started the game strongly on Thursday night, taking the lead with an own goal from Stefan Savic in the 9th minute. They extended their advantage with Tom Aldred’s goal before halftime, and Jason Cummings scored the third after the break.
Although Hyderabad FC had more ball possession and completed more passes, the head coach acknowledged that the dominance of their opponents made the difference.
“Overall, I’m impressed with the boys—the way they played and how we wanted them to play. Of course, there were silly mistakes in the opening minutes; that’s something we should have avoided,” Chembakath said during the post-match press conference.
“Otherwise, we could have controlled the tempo of the game, and of course, it’s a learning experience for us to go ahead with the upcoming matches,” he added.
“When you play against a team like Mohun Bagan Super Giant, the table-toppers right now, we had a game plan. Of course, it worked well, but defensively, maybe we need to improve more,” he continued further.
However, Chembakath emphasized the importance of reducing errors ahead of the upcoming games during the training sessions.
“There are a lot of aspects which we saw in the stats too. If you see the number of passes, and passing accuracy, we’ve been dominating, but there are some errors which we need to correct.
That will be the focus for the coming matches,” he stated.
The head coach also emphasized the need for improvement in converting chances. Hyderabad FC had seven shots on target, just one less than their opponents, but couldn’t find the back of the net.
“Yeah, this (converting chances) is one of the things we need to improve on in the coming training sessions. Of course, when you see a lot of young players coming off the bench, they need to be
more experienced in such a match against a good, strong team,” he said.
“Abhijith PA is one of the ones who came in as the attacking midfielder in Cy Goddard’s position.
I think he did well, and he got a chance in the last few minutes. I think we need to work on this more,” Chembakath commented.
