We could've thought of scoring more goals, asserts Mohun Bagan head coach Antonio Lopez Habas

Habas also shared about his confidence in Mariners clinching the shield in ISL 2023-24.

Mohun Bagan raced their way to the top of the Indian Super League (ISL) table with an impressive 3-1 win over East Bengal at the Salt Lake Stadium on Sunday. Three goals from Jason Cummings, Liston Colaco, and Dimitri Petratos in the first half proved enough for the Mariners to maintain their unbeaten run under Antonio Habas and take up an advantage in the ISL shield race.

Habas reflects on the win

Despite the comprehensive win, Antonio Habas was displeased with how Mohun Bagan let their performance levels down in the second half as he reflected after the game. “We could’ve thought of the possibility of scoring more goals in the first half, but the dynamics changed after the first 45 minutes. We had to defend, but the idea was not just to defend because the idea was to continuously press on the opponent,” exclaimed Bagan Boss.

“I don’t know what happened, but that wasn’t our idea and our idea in the second half in the dressing room talk was to continue pressing high up to the opponent’s half, I don’t know why that changed and we have to improve. I’ve trained the team for 45 days and it’s impossible to control everything,” Habas added.

Vishal Kaith’s penalty

When asked if he felt that Vishal Kaith’s penalty save to deny Cleiton Silva early on was a game-changer, he replied, “It’s impossible to do magic because I can’t change what happened to the circumstances that led to the penalty.

I don’t know if it was a penalty, but we have a very good penalty stopper who can save key penalties. Maybe our confidence in the first minute was shaky because the opponents pressed hard, but I feel we need to improve upon our performance from the second half,” asserted Habas.

Habas replies to those questioning his style

After seeing his side play exciting attacking football and score three goals in a derby, Habas also hit out at his critics who questioned his style for being too defensive. He stated, “Do you remember in the 19/20 season, everyone said that Habas is so defensive, he parks the bus in the goal?

Now we have players to play attacking football. I remember in 2015 the team was more attacking than any other team, now we have the necessary players to play attacking football and that is our idea. But it’s not just attacking, the transitions are complete when you defend and attack, and it’s not just attack, attack, attack.”

“After that, you have to defend, you cannot defend with three center-backs only – you have to defend with four players. In football, the structure and organization of a team is important all the time. The formation doesn’t matter, this system immediately whistled the first action.

Now we had a different system in attack and a different on defence. The idea of modern football has changed, it’s not like you play 4-3-3 all the time and also defend in 4-3-3. Now in football, you might attack in 4-3-3 and defend in 4-5-1,” he also claimed.

Focus on Kerala Blasters challenge

Habas is now focused on the upcoming match against Kerala Blasters on Wednesday (March 13) Habas said, “I want to win the next match because we need to prepare for the Kerala Blasters match that we play a few days later. We don’t have time to prepare much for that match, but we need to continue and we have players who can be rotated in the next match. That is necessary.”

How confident is Habas of Mohun Bagan’s ISL shield-winning chances?

Finally, when asked about how confident he is about Mohun Bagan’s chances of winning the ISL shield title, Habas replied, “We are in a good moment. We are first in the league, the team is playing well, and no injured players. But we need to be calm. We can’t think of the Mumbai game, because the next match is against Kerala.”

“We must compete in that game and then recover the team in time for that. We have three days to travel, take a flight, and then also assess which players don’t risk possible injuries. We need to continue taking things one step at a time, I’m not thinking about the final result and I’m not going to talk about the final,” Bagan Boss concluded.

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