We limited an attack-minded team to few opportunities: Simon Grayson

Simon Grayson wants his team to cut out mistakes in the upcoming ISL games.

Mohun Bagan Super Giant triumphed over a 9-man Bengaluru FC side on Wednesday at the Salt Lake Stadium in Kolkata, continuing their spectacular start to the 2023–24 Indian Super League (ISL) season. Hugo Boumous scored the game's only goal in the 67th minute after receiving a superb assist from fellow teammate Jason Cummings.

Bengaluru FC head coach Simon Grayson spoke at the post-match press confernece after the loss to Bagan. Excerpts from the conversation are below:

Thoughts on today's match

Simon Grayson shared the main takeaways from today's match. The mentor said, “When we look back at the first half, we were good in both departments. We had 3-4 decent chances in the first 20 minutes and limited Mohun bagan to a few opportunities. Our shape was really good in the first half and Gurpreet (Sandhu) didn’t need anthing to save."

He also spoke about the two red cards that BFC had to concede today, “I haven’t seen the replay. I‘m not sure if that was Suresh (Singh) or Roshan (Naorem) for the first one. If it was Roshan then Suresh shouldn’t have been sent off. In the second one, Dimitri (Petratos) was through on goal but hard to confirm without seeing any replays.”

Simon Grayson further added, "We needed to be more ruthless when we were on top. Second half was similar. The goal we conceded was one we should deal with better. The lack of communication between the goalkeeper and the centre-back hurt us. But before that we weren’t threatened to concede too many goals. We just needed to be better in both boxes so that we don’t make mistakes and take the opportunities we make.”

Need of a goal-scorer?

Given that their captain Sunil Chhetri is already occupied with national duty, Simon Grayson discussed whether or not they need a new goal-scorer. He said, “When I look into the options we had tonight, Javi (Hernandez) and Curtis (Main) missed a lot of pre-season. Sunil and Rohit Danu are over with India for national services."

He added, "We had Siva (Narayanan) and Monirul (Molla) come off the bench to have a goal. We could’ve won the game if we took our chances. We limited an attack-minded team to a few opportunities. We need to finish our chances and not give our opposition too many chances. We've created a few tonight, but it's the hardest thing in football to score them.”

Approach for next few games

Simon Grayson shared his plans on how he and his team are going to move on from their last two defeats and re-organize themselves to get back on winning ways. The tactician said,"We will try and win the next game. That was our approach for both the games we have played."

He concluded by saying, "We are back at home next week. We aim to play positive football and defend well as a team and cut out mistakes. We must show commitment and hard-work that we showed tonight. We worked very hard and never stopped trying.”

Suresh Singh Wangjam and Naorem Roshan Singh, two key assets of Simon Grayson's team, were sent off, which would be a big blow for Bengaluru FC in their forthcoming home game against East Bengal at the Sree Kanteerava Stadium.