ISL 2025-26: Sergio Lobera highlights key areas to fix before Chennaiyin showdown

Mohun Bagan SG targets another win against Chennaiyin FC in ISL

Mohun Bagan SG looks to make it two wins in-a-row in the 2025-26 Indian Super League (ISL) when they host Chennaiyin FC at the Salt Lake Stadium, Kolkata on Monday (23 February 2026). The Mariners began their ISL title defense with a compelling 2-0 win over Kerala Blasters, but head coach Sergio Lobera clearly feels that there is still a lot of room for improvement within his side’s performance levels.

Ahead of the Chennaiyin FC clash, he emphasized on the need for improvement.

He stated: “We are always focused on improving ourselves, in terms of our style and philosophy. We are working most of the time on improving that, but we also have to keep the opponent in mind and every opponent is different.”

“Chennaiyin players to a different way to Kerala Blasters, and we need to know how to do things when we have the ball and when we don’t have the ball. We are working and putting our focus on ourselves, more than the opponents.”

When asked about what major threats he feels Chennaiyin FC can pose to his side, the Spaniard replied: “I’m not giving excuses about the posts, you can see how the teams are fighting in all the games. It’s not the same to play in the first competitive game as compared to some friendly games, we finished the last game with 10 players as Robson had cramped and we finished all substitutions.”

“The Chennaiyin FC squad is very good, and they have very experienced players in foreign players, who have played in this competition for long time and know the competition really well. I think everyone was crying before the competition, but now you can see that we’ll play against very good foreigners against Chennaiyin, very good Indian players and they can perform at the highest level. We need to be ready because it won’t be easy at all, 100%,” he also claimed.

Areas of improvement in Mohun Bagan SG’s performances

Speaking about the particular areas he wants his players to improve in their performances going forward.

Lobera explained: “Our plan is to improve in every game. We’ve started well, but there are some aspects to improve from the last game. We need to be ambitious and to ensure that it’s not all amazing when you win and everything is not disastrous when we lose. It’s not amazing when you’re winning, you can improve when you are winning and even when you lose you are maybe doing some stuff well. We have to be happy about the last result but also improve in a lot of things.”

“We need to work on that, and the players must know we are demanding professionals and we need to improve. In the next game, we need to continue working on the good things we showed in the last game but also improve certain aspects that we didn’t do well in the last game.”

“I think our mentality has to be one goal more than the opponent. When you finish the games in your own half, you give opponents chances to score. We scored our second goal with practically the final minutes. Our mentality has to be, if we are wining 1-0, we must push to score a second goal – we cannot defend the result playing backwards and defending the result. The players must be brave, show personality and when you are winning to score the next goal and dominate the game.”

“We need to improve on the ruthlessness a bit more, because in the last game with a 1-0 lead, we gave the opponents a few chances to score an equalizer. If you can finish the game by scoring a second goal, you have to ensure doing so before the 90th minute,” he emphasized.

Plans to beat Chennaiyin FC’s defensive shape

Lobera also insisted his players need to have alternative plans in place to trouble the Chennaiyin FC backline if they go with a defensive mindset.

He said: “You need to think about the same. When you have empty space, you must work on utilizing that. The opponents will work on giving us little space if they are defending well in their half and look to hurt us on counterattacks. We need to work on moving around in short spaces. We scored the first goal against Kerala moving smartly in short spaces.”

“We have very good wingers, who get spaces to run in most of the games, but we might not have that against Chennaiyin. We must have to be ready with different plans, if you are going into a game with a plan A – you also must have a plan B and plan C to compete at the highest level,” he also added.

When asked if he felt some players, like Robson Robinho, looked sluggish in the win over Kerala Blasters, Lobera replied: “The first game of a competition is very difficult. Even if you do 3-4 months of pre-season, but when you work two months of pre-season with uncertainty around when a season starts, the first competitive game is not easy.”

“I’m happy with the players’ performance and they know we need to improve. It’ll be different in the second game. Maybe you can’t see the real potential or quality of a player to compete at the highest level in the first game. We now have a good chance to show everyone that we are improving and that we can do better,” he added.

Different competition from previous campaigns

Finally, the Spanish coach spoke about the major differences he’s noticing in the 2025-26 ISL as compared to recent years and how his side must adapt to it.

He explained: “This is, obviously, a different competition as we play less number of games. There are not a lot of games because the number of teams are increased. When I came in the ISL, we could play with six foreign players and now we play with four foreigners. In this point of the competition, this is a big challenge because the margin for errors is very less.”

“This will be a good competition after watching more games this season. It won’t be easy because every game is very difficult, but we are excited and have the highest motivational level to reach our target and finish the campaign on top of the table. We are a winning team with a champions mentality and have a very good squad, we cannot find excuses.”

“We need to respect opponents as every team is difficult in this competition, but the main difference compared to previous seasons is that there are less number of games, there are not equal home-away games – but we must be ready for that. We need to know that margin of mistakes is less and the goal difference can also be crucial. We need to keep in mind during the season that the goal difference factor this season could be more important than it is in previous ones,” he finished off with.

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