Simon Grayson: It's a good start for us, having the lead after the away leg

Bengaluru FC extended their of victories streak to 10 matches with a 1-0 win against Shield Winners Mumbai City at the Mumbai Football Arena. Greg Stewart made his return from injury and contributed handsomely to an early storm of attacks from Mumbai.

Bengaluru FC worked very hard off the ball, keeping their shape and closing the Mumbai attackers down as a group. They settled early into the sit-back and counter system that has made them a massive threat.

Sunil Chhetri replaced Sivasakthi and BFC looked a much better squad in possession and transitions. The inspirational captain headed home Roshan Singh's corner to give the visitors the lead.

They continued to push forwards in search of the second goal, Chhetri denied by the outstanding reflexes of Phurba Lachenpa in the Mumbai goal. Mis-firing Mumbai failed to test Gurpreet Singh Sandhu, and will be disappointed with the outcome. Simon Grayson was present at the post-match press conference.

Two-sided nature of the game

After forming a defensive force field in the first half, Bengaluru FC looked to hit back and began the second half with a more attacking mindset and greater intensity. Grayson outlined how he fulfilled his plans, "Well, I think you've got to give Mumbai credit because we knew that they would come at us in the first 15-20 minutes.

"We had to make sure that we defended well with passion and desire, that when you get the ball back, you have to keep it and be a little bit more calm and relaxed. And we gave it away a lot far too easily in the first half, which allowed Mumbai to have probably more attacks than we wanted.So that was a message at half-time. Keep defending like we have as individuals and work as a team. When we get the ball back, make sure that we keep it better and we ask more questions in Mumbai."

"And obviously we got the goal and looked a threat after the goal, certainly, where we could have got the second and potentially the third, but it's a good start for us, having the lead. But we haven't achieved anything yet."

Sunil Chhetri not starting

It was a slight surprise to see Chhetri missing out in the starting XI due to his vast experience in such pressure situations. Moreover, Chhetri scored the opening goal when the two sides last met. Sivasakthi let the occasion get to him, but Chhetri's heart and desire were the catalysts for this victory, feels Simon Grayson, "He's a model professional and I contemplated starting him because of how he's played and he knows what semi-final playoffs are like because he's played in so many and we just felt Siva might give us a little bit more pace on the counter-attack.

"But again Sunil comes on and does what he does and for somebody of his size to go and score two headers against Mumbai in the last three or four weeks tells you he's got a lot of heart and desire.

Collective defensive strength

Every single man in dark blue played his part in the defensive half. The back-five in particular have stopped leaking goals through errors, and the combination of Suresh Wangjam and Rohit Kumar as the deep-lying midfielders has allowed Javi the space and time to work his magic. Following another clean sheet, Grayson said, "Look you've got to defend well against a team like Mumbai. I mean they've got the most goals in the ISL league season.

That shows you what they are capable of doing, they've got players that can make things happen out and nothing and I think Prabir Das in the first 30 seconds or so you made a clearance or a block which probably set the tempo what we needed to do and the lads were certainly focused. We spent a lot of time on the training pitch this season since preseason working on defensive shape not just the defenders but also the midfield players and the strikers as well."

Blocking the outside noise

Kerala Blasters had appealed requesting the AIFF for a replay of the eliminator. Their appeal was rejected, and the decision regarding the punishment for the walk-out will be announced soon. The experienced Simon Grayson said, " I've been in football a long time, so I know how to deal with certain situations. Not one like what happened the other night, but similar situations where if you're not careful, you can lose focus of what your task in hand is going to be.

That was the first message I said to the players after, when we're into the recovery session was there'll be a lot of outside noise that will be going off from different people. There'll be this, that, and other will happen. We can't affect that. All we've done is we've won again through a team doing something what they decided to do.Our focus is now to focus on Mumbai and making sure that we're really prepared properly and that's all the message was and full credit players have done that. It's quite interesting to do when you find out that we've been drawn in the Super Cup against Kerala, for a couple of minutes that has made everybody laugh a little bit."

We have to be focused, work hard and make sure we do whatever we can to get through because it's certainly going to be a really tough game again, because Mumbai will be hurting. They know what they need to do and we know what we'll need to do again."

Sunil Chhetri's impact

The man in the middle of the controversy was Sunil Chhetri, The legend is in the latter years of his career and has lost his spot to Sivasakthi. Today, amid all the pointing fingers, excuses and accusations, Sunil Chhetri was there to score again for the Blues. Grayson spoke of Chhetri as the ideal role model, "Well, a huge amount of experience, responsibility, and advice as well to the younger players, not just in the dressing room, but in the team meetings,

in the hotel, whenever players want to talk, sometimes they maybe not want to talk to me about certain things. They might want to talk to him. And I've got no issues with that because he cares about this football club, cares about looking after himself, and he's a role model to the rest of the players. He's conducted himself extremely well