Simon Grayson: We showed purpose, passion, and quality

The Bengaluru FC made Mumbai City taste their first defeat of the season.

Bengaluru FC extended their streak of victories to seven with a brilliant performance against Mumbai City FC. The Shield winners tasted defeat for the first time this season. Bengaluru FC were very compact in defence, limiting opportunities to the Mumbai attackers. Sunil Chhetri, who filled in for the suspended Roy Krishna, scored the opening goal through a corner and Javi Hernandez tapped in the second.

Despite a late fight from Mumbai following Fall’s goal, Simon Grayson’s men stood firm and saw off the victory that puts the team in fourth place on the league table. The Englishman addressed the media in the post-match press conference.

Greg Stewart's warm-up injury

Mumbai’s talisman Greg Stewart suffered an injury in the warm-up after being named in the starting XI. Simon Grayson said that he did not change the plan upon hearing the news, “I went out for the warm-up and saw that he seemed to roll his ankle. It gave us an opportunity. Greg Stewart is a fantastic player and Noguera is one of the best around as well. We had to stick to our game plan to make sure everything we worked on the last few days.

"Bengaluru FC (We) didn’t change our plan, just carried out what we wanted to do and certainly did that. We used a lot of energy in the win against Kerala in the weekend. We recovered really well and showed purpose, and passion and showed quality. To beat Mumbai is an unbelievable achievement. We are delighted that we won again tonight.”

Thoughts on the game

BFC began the brighter of the two sides and always looked like a threat from set-pieces. Grayson spoke of his game plan to counter the Islanders, “I think we were well and truly value for money. We carried out the game plan we wanted to play. You always know that Mumbai are going to have possession. What we wanted to make sure of is when they had it, we let them play in certain areas and be nice and compact as a back-5.

"We wanted to play balls between centre-backs and full-backs like Man City do. Bengaluru FC (We) had to be high in concentration when we got the chance. We did threaten them in set-pieces with good delivery and good height, but probably did not expect one of the smaller players to score, eh? It gave us the perfect opportunity to go forward and we had to work hard for the result. We defended well, and saw the game off really well.”

Sunil Chhetri's vital contributions

The Bengaluru FC captain Sunil Chhetri made a rare start and capped off the occasion with his second goal of the season. Grayson said, “You don’t become a bad player overnight. Sunil has waited for his opportunity; he’s trained really well and he’s given me one big problem to contemplate next week. We had some big players missing tonight and our bench was full of young players.”

Bruno Ramires playing out of position

Filling in for the suspended Parag Shrivas and as Alan Costa had to fly back home, Simon Grayson gave Ramires a start from centre-back and the Brazilian did not disappoint, The coach said, “It was something that we looked at pre-season when we were in Bellary, we played a couple of practice matches there. When I said to him the other day that you’ve gotta play, he says no problem. He fit into there and Suresh came back into midfield and Alan had to go back home. It’s a good trait to have players that give everything to the badge.”