We've tried few different things in this Durand Cup: Des Buckingham

Des Buckingham’s Mumbai City are unbeaten at the hands of Mohun Bagan.

Mumbai City FC started their Durand Cup 2023 campaign perfectly with three wins in the group stage, courtesy of which they now have smoothly reached the quarter-finals of competition. The Islanders will now face a powerful and confident Mohun Bagan in their next knockout match.

Mumbai City FC boss Des Buckingham seemed confident ahead of their match against the Mariners tomorrow at the Vivekananda Yuba Bharati Krirangan. Here’s what he said at the pre-match press conference.

Des Buckingham’s thoughts on his team

How Des Buckingham addressed today’s press conference tells that he is quite ‘confident’ with his team and they have started exactly from the place they left off. Talking more about his team, he said he is looking forward to what is in store for him.

“It wasn’t for us about starting new this year. It was about recognizing a lot of the good work and a lot of the good stuff that certainly has been built and was on show last season and taking a large part of that with us to this year. Now it’s about a continuation of that, which will allow us to evolve and get better.”

He further added, “The three games we’ve had in the Durand Cup, we’ve tried a few different things. We’ve obviously had a chance to look at different players and different ways of doing certain things. It’s been a good start. I’m very happy where we are at the moment and very much looking forward to what’s to come.”

Buckhingham’s mindset ahead of their clash against MBSG

The match between Mumbai City FC and Mohun Bagan will be an interesting one to watch as both teams hold the ability to turn the tables in any situation. Ahead of their quarter-final clash, Des Buckingham emphasised more on their mindset and planning.

“It’s not something I look at, to be honest with you. I think what’s happened is in the past. We will just do everything that we always do, preparing both for Mohun Bagan Super Giant and any other team that we come up against, which is to try and prepare our players as well as we can for them to be able to go out and perform as well as they can.”

He also added, “We were able to demonstrate last year that if we did that, we put ourselves in the strongest position to hopefully come away with a positive result. But we know that’s not always the case in football, but we’ve got as much control of stuff that we have and we’ll try to do as much as we can to prepare our club and players to perform, whether it’s against Mohun Bagan or any other team we play.”

Injury updates ahead of the quarter-final clash

Des Buckingham gives injury updates ahead of their quarter-final match against MBSG. He said, “We’ve got everybody fully fit and fully trained. We had a session last night where I think for the first time since pre-season, we had all 28 players fully trained in.”

He further added, “We’ve had a plan since we arrived back in Thailand. We’ve made some changes. We’ve given certain players opportunities to play in front of others to see what they can do. We’re using these games to try and prepare our players both for the start of the season, but also to get us back to where we need to be to compete in the ISL and also the AFC Champions League. No injury concerns at all going into the game for tomorrow.”

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