BENGALURU: IN a rare sight, a visibly tired Bengaluru FC skipper Sunil Chhetri dropped to the left-back position in the 68th minute against Mumbai City FC during their 2-3 loss in an Indian Super League match on Sunday. At 35, Chhetri could be excused for not being the fittest player. But even with the tired legs, Chhetri was still Bengaluru’s best attacker in the encounter. Other two forwards — Udanta Singh and Ashique Kuruniyan — although helped a lot in defence — but they didn’t have the same impact.
The problem for Bengaluru coach Carles Cuadrat was that he didn’t have many options on the bench. He had Thongkhosiem Haokip and Edmund Lalrindika and the Spaniard even brought on the latter in the 72nd minute but he failed to produce desired results. As a team, Bengaluru had nine shots of which only two were on target compared to Mumbai’s eight out of 16. That stat has been more or less similar this season.
Spanish striker Manuel Onwu, who was supposed to carry on Miku’s goalscoring duty as a like-to-like replacement, failed to impress in the three games.And when he got injured, Cuadrat had to rely on Chhetri to score, forming an Indian attacking trio. Though Chhetri has carried out the responsibility with four goals in eight matches, the lack of depth in the attack has started hurting the team.
“We have a foreign player who you expect to make some difference and you cannot play him (Onwu). You see, foreign players are scoring goals for their respective teams. We have been unlucky,” said Cuadrat. “Edmund has scored goals for the ‘B’ team but when he was on the pitch last season, he didn’t get any goal or assist. The two wingers — Ashique and Udanta — do a lot for the team. But Udanta has one goal and Ashique is without assists or goals. So it’s a problem.”
As the match against NorthEast United in Guwahati on Wednesday got a go-ahead despite the recent protests, Bengaluru have two tough away matches to play. The match will be played behind closed doors. The other match is against league leaders ATK in Kolkata on December 25. And the defending champions have no option but to trust Chhetri’s brilliance and a solid defence if they wish to salvage a point or three.
“The fight is for the play-offs and we have all the league to reach there. There is one special position which will give us the right to play in the AFC Champions League and we’d like to have that,” Cuadrat said.
“I know what I have in my hands. Maybe we cannot build a team now expecting to win every game 5-4; maybe it has to be 1-0. Last season we won a lot of games 1-0, 2-1 without Miku. It has been similar this season as well and we have to trust our players to do that.”