Jose Molina praises one player's performance in Punjab FC thrashing

Jose Molina’s Mohun Bagan became the first team to qualify for the ISL 2024-25 playoffs.

Jose Molina’s Mohun Bagan took another big step forward to sealing the 2024-25 Indian Super League (ISL) campaign by getting a big 3-0 win over Punjab FC at the Salt Lake Stadium, Kolkata on Wednesday (5 February).

A brace from Jamie Maclaren and a Greg Stewart goal helped the Mariners get their ninth straight home win in the ongoing campaign.

Jose Molina was really impressed with how well Maclaren played in the game and earned his brace. The Spaniard also praised Maclaren’s defensive qualities along with his attacking influence, stating: “I’m happy with Jamie Maclaren, Greg Stewart, Jason Cummings, Dimi Petratos – all of them. Today, Jamie had the success to score two goals and could’ve scored even more goals. But two goals are great. He had a great performance, Greg also had a great performance.

“I was not worried about the goals, because they are having the chances. When strikers have chances, goals will always come. They have to keep working in the same way and they will score more goals. To be honest, in terms of Jamie Maclaren, the things that make me happier are how he defends, how he helps the team from the beginning to defending, be it pressing the centre-backs and helping the midfielders.

“It’s how he sacrifices in defence to help the team. That is not so easy for a striker to do, because strikers usually don’t like defending too much. He is doing an absolutely great job in defence and of course, after that, in the attacking phase he’s helping the team with good movement, good combination and in some moments, like today, in scoring goals to win matches,” he also added

On the ISL 2024-25 shield race

Even though Mohun Bagan are now firm favourites to clinch the ISL campaign, Jose Molina refuses to claim that their 46 points is enough to seal the title. He claimed: “Goa and Jamshedpur can reach more than 46 points. If they don’t’, we’ll be here celebrating. But if they win all the matches, they can reach way more than 46 points.”

“We are in a good advantage right now and it’s true that we have played two more matches than our title rivals. We’ll see what happens with their happens and irrespective of what happens, we are always focused on ourselves. We will have some rest right now after a lot of consecutive matches in few days. We’ll have some days off and then start to work to win the Kerala Blasters match and achieve three more points,” he finished off with.

Mohun Bagan are now going to get a little break in the ISL and will be back in action on 15 February when they travel to face Kerala Blasters in Kochi.

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