CHENNAI: Someone once said that a hole was only as deep as the time you take to get out of it. In their opening game against FC Goa, Chennaiyin coach John Gregory had dug himself and his team into a hole with some questionable tactics. It took him exactly four days to set that right.
Chennaiyin FC’s 3-0 thrashing of NorthEast United was marked as much by an improved performance from Gregory as it was from his team. This time, it was NorthEast boss Joao de Dues’ turn to be the confounded presence on the touchline as he never really was able to come up with answers to the questions posed by his opposite number.
While NorthEast went into the game with an unchanged line-up from their last game against Jamshedpur, Gregory made a number of changes to the dysfunctional eleven than he had put out against FC Goa. Dhanachandra Singh, Rene Mihelic and Thoi Singh were dropped in favour of Bikramjit Singh, Gregory Nelson and hometown boy Dhanpal Ganesh.
Gregory also shelved his experiment of playing three at the back, going in with a traditional four-man defence — Jerry Lalrinzuala and Inigo Calderon lining up alongside the two central defenders. But what was perhaps of more consequence was how Gregory lined up his midfield. Bikramjit and Dhanpal provided a combative crux just in front of the defense with the dynamic Raphael Augusto further up front.
The trio dominated the midfield throughout the game, with NorthEast players often running into brick walls, just as they had managed to carry the ball out of defence. In attack, the pacy duo of Jeje Lalpekhlua and Nelson, the latter playing more or less as a traditional, touchline-hugging winger on the left, provided the deeper players outlets to aim the long balls at. It did not take long for Gregory’s tactics to be vindicated. In the eleventh minute, they had their goal. Augusto won the ball from midfield, carried it into the attacking third without much of a challenge and unleashed a curving shot at Rehenesh in the NorthEast goal.
The visitors’ defence should have dealt with it easily, but Abdul Hakku only succeeded in deflecting it in to his own goal. Fortuitous, maybe, but no less than what Chennaiyin deserved. Chennaiyin doubled their lead in the 24th minute and, unlike the first, there was no hint of fortune about it. Bikramjit floated in a long ball from outside the box, which found Nelson on the left. The Dutch winger, rather than attempt to score, headed it down for Jeje in the centre.
The Mizo striker was unable to bring it under control, but the ball sprang loose to Augusto, who was never going to make a mistake from that range. On the touchline, Gregory beamed, for the goal was a direct result of three of the changes he made from the first game.
The two co-creators — Bikramjit and Nelson — hadn’t started against Goa, while it was his decision to create a defensive-midfield buffer of Dhanesh and Bikramjit that freed Augusto to make marauding runs into the box.
Unlike the Goa game, where the visitors’ third goal stirred a rousing Chennaiyin fightback, NorthEast looked deflated after Augusto’s strike. Even after halftime, when at least some of the momentum shifted in their favour, NorthEast never looked like scoring.
The closest they got was a Lalrindika Ralte freekick that came close to beating Karanjit Singh. But for most of the second half, the outcome of the match seemed a foregone conclusion. The customary rubberstamp arrived in the 84th minute when Mohammed Rafi headed in from close range, after a freekick from fellow substitute Jamie Gavilan had bounced off the bar.
NorthEast had managed three seasons without losing a game in Chennai. Four in a row was too much of an ask.
vishnu.prasad@newindianexpress.com