Chennai City prevail 2-0 over Minerva Punjab in a battle of I-league debutants

Charles De Souza scored in the dying minutes to kill off the game for the hosts. . . 

Minerva Punjab were relegated to a 2-0 defeat at home as Chennai City FC continued from where they left off after beating Kingfisher East Bengal.

Both teams made two changes respectively for the encounter. Surinder Singh had Fanai Lalrempuia and David Ngaihte benched for Altamash Sayed and Kamalpreet Singh. Robin Charles Raj meanwhile Edwin Vanspaul and Lalnunmawia in place of Nandakumar and Marcos Thank.

Minerva made early inroads through Moinuddin who looked lively. In fact, he had dribbled past the Chennai defence but only smacked his shot over in the 14th minute.

Loveday was alert as he did not let Charles through almost immediately as Chennai countered.

Amidst jostling from both teams with Arnab Das Sharma pulling off a couple of regulation saves, Chennai City took the lead in the 41st minute.

Full Highlights: Minerva Punjab FC 0-2 Chennai City FC

Michael Soosairaj raced on to a ball from Charles as Kim was caught ball watching and he did excellently to slot it past Das Sharma whose valiant effort was finally broken.

Minerva made two changes at the start of the second half with David Ngaihte and Souvik Das coming on.

A minute before half-time Victor Amobi could have scored the equaliser when he was left empty inside the box but he could only find Karanjit Singh with a feeble attempt.

David Ngaihte looked lovely after coming on and breached the Chennai defence but his shot was blocked by Ravanan at the last moment.

Arnab Das Sharma again came to his side’s rescue in the last ten minutes after Charles was clear yet again but the goalkeeper had come off his line and managed to smother the ball.

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With Chennai going on to their second win in a row, the icing on the cake was provided by Charles as Soosairaj turned provider and he beat Arnab Das Sharma with a fine effort in what was the last kick of the match.

The win sees Chennai go to seventh on the table while Minerva still languish second from the bottom with two points more than Mumbai FC.