Team is working in right direction to get more wins, says Carles Cuadrat

Carles Cuadrat heaped praise upon defender Hijazi Maher for his exceptional outing against Mumbai City.

East Bengal produced what can be defined as arguably their best performance of the 2023/24 Indian Super League (ISL) season by holding defending champions Mumbai City to a 0-0 draw on Saturday (16 December).

Cuadrat pleased with East Bengal’s result

Carles Cuadrat was pleased with seeing his side get a point after an impressive display, as he said: “I thought we won a point today. It’s going to be a league with a lot of teams fighting for the top-six spots. Every point helps us to get to the playoffs spot. We have to get more wins, of course, and until now we played too many draws and only have two wins. But I feel like the team is working in the right direction to get more wins.

“If you see, there was a lot of space in the counter-attacks towards the end of the match as we tried to kill them. It was a very professional performance in trying to go for the three points, but sometimes it’s the question of the last pass – which was not happening for us,” he added.

Praise for defensive improvement

When asked if he has seen a significant improvement in his team’s defensive qualities, the Spaniard explained: “It’s the third clean-sheet in a row for us. If you want to be competitive, you have to have a good defence and from there you can build and try to win games. If you see FC Goa, who are at the top of the league, they have five clean-sheets in the last eight games. They have got three results with a 1-0 win. This is football at the top level.

“Everyone is very focused and you have to take advantage of your strengths and capitalize on the opponents’ weak points. I think we’ve been doing that in the last four games. We were unfortunate to concede that goal against Chennaiyin because that would have also been a 1-0 win for us. I’m not a lover of 1-0 wins, but if you have to be competitive, you have to build a team with a good defensive structure. The last time East Bengal got three clean-sheets in a row was in 2017. So six years later, the team is showing a good way to understand the game.

“We have to improve in how to manage situations of the game to be the winners. The set-pieces are something in which we are doing a lot of work behind the scenes. We had many goals in set-pieces in the Durand Cup, but in the ISL we have to improve in corners and free-kicks,” he added.

Cuadrat annoyed with East Bengal not getting penalty

Carles Cuadrat was annoyed that East Bengal did not get a penalty for an apparent handball in the first half and how this might be becoming a pattern for them. He said: “We are also very unlucky in getting penalties. I don’t know what we have to do to get the penalties for handballs. This is not the first time it happened with us. It happened against Bengaluru and Jamshedpur also. In the first half, there was a handball in the Mumbai box and we should’ve got a penalty – but this is happening to us in almost every game.”

Praise for Hijazi Maher

The East Bengal boss had a lot of praise for defender Hijazi Maher after his superb defensive display. He mentioned: “He’s helping us a lot. He’s got a very good physique and I’m happy to have him. We all do things for the club and are trying to be competitive again after a lot of years where the club has not been with a good project. I’m happy to have this player. Initially, he played matches after a long time, so he needed a few matches to get fit. He made mistakes in the first few games because he wasn’t ready. But now he’s showing himself as a player who can help us a lot.”

Cuadrat hoping to end 2023 strongly

Finally, Carles Cuadrat opened up on how his side has performed since after the November international break in a tough schedule,. He explained: “We all know that the calendar is a problem in Indian football. It’s difficult to create a good rhythm for the players with this schedule. You have to be playing every week and play more games. It’s unfortunate that we haven’t had a good calendar, and that we have played two games less than a lot of teams. We’ll go into the Christmas break with only 10 games played, when some opponents will be playing 12 games.

“If you see the games played, we have played nine in the ISL and six in the Durand Cup, so in 15 games we have six clean-sheets and that is a good number. We have scored more goals (in one match compared to other seasons) like the 5-0 win over NorthEast United. We reached a final that we didn’t in the last 5 years. There are a lot of positive messages. We have to be calm and keep working in the right direction,” he ended with.

For more updates, follow Khel Now on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube; download the Khel Now Android App or IOS App and join our community on Whatsapp & Telegram.