'Everything depends on quality of players' - Antonio Habas slams critics after Kerala Blasters game

Numerous pundits and fans used to claim Antonio Habas plays a defensive brand of football and the manager has finally spoken up.

Mohun Bagan spiced up Indian Super League (ISL) table with a thrilling 4-3 win over Kerala Blasters at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, Kochi. A brace from Armando Sadiku as well as goals from Deepak Tangri and Jason Cummings helped the Mariners come out on top after an action-packed encounter.

Praise for clinical forwards

Antonio Habas was a happy man after the win, but refused to just pick out praise for Sadiku and instead hailed his entire forward line. He said: “Sadiku was very good. We had good feelings about having three strikers with the possibility to score goals because that’s important for a team – if you have a player injured – then you have the opportunity with the other two. I’m very happy with the performance of Dimi (Petratos), Sadiku and Jason (Cummings).

“I think Sadiku is a good player, but so are Jason and Dimi. We had the opportunity to have three good strikers and now I need to find game-time for everyone, which is difficult for me,” he also stated.

Not worried about conceding three goals

When asked if he was worried about his side’s defending and conceding three goals, the tactician surprisingly replied: “Not today. Today we knew that it would be a very difficult match. We had too much pressure from the supporters and from the match because we played three days ago against East Bengal in a high-intensity encounter and then had to travel in a short time to Kerala. The goal difference for us is still good, evidently. I would’ve preferred to win 4-0 but a 4-3 win with three points is the most important thing.”

Habas hits back at doubters and makes goal admission

The Spaniard again took a dig at those who doubted his capabilities to coach Mohun Bagan and criticized him for playing defensive football. He stated: “The idea in 2019 was that Habas is defensive, he parks the bus and all that. Everything depends on the quality of the players you have. You have players for playing attacking football, you will. The magic word is balance. You not only have to attack, but also defend at the same time in matches.”

Antonio Habas admitted that his side could’ve scored more goals had they been more clinical. He claimed: “In the last minutes, maybe the score could’ve been 7-3 with three more goals. That’s logical because the opponents went all out in attack and left spaces in the defence. We changed our players to bring more pace into the attack and brought Jason and Liston (Colaco) to utlilize the spaces.”

Fixture list pile-up and international break

The Mohun Bagan boss again bemoaned his side’s fixture list leading to this match and gave an advice to the ISL organizers. He mentioned: “The schedule is not good. It needs to be the same for all teams. In a league competition, you need to have the same opportunities for everyone. It’s not an excuse, but I think if the competition want to be more serious, then they have to be more serious in the scheduling and things like that. That’s my opinion.”

Finally, when questioned on his thoughts about the upcoming international break for the next two weeks, Habas reflected: “I hope there are no more injuries in the International break because it’s mandatory to go to the national team. I hope the best for the Indian national team in their two matches. We have to analyze when the players will come back to the team and depending on that we have to think about rotation for the next match after the break,” he concluded.

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