Owen Coyle admits Chennaiyin FC 'shot themselves in the foot' in Mohammedan SC loss

Home form continues to be an issue for the Marina Machans.

Chennaiyin FC played their first home game in the Indian Super League (ISL) 2024-25 on 26th September against Mohammedan SC at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium. The Marina Machans were off to a great start but unforced errors in defense gifted their opponents the only goal, which cost them the match.

Although Chennaiyin tried their best to counter, the Black and White Brigade marshaled their box all too well, having learned from their past lapses against FC Goa. After the match, Chennaiyin FC head coach, Owen Coyle addressed what went wrong and what needs to be done after the loss.

Owen Coyle dissects Chennaiyin FC’s loss

In the post-match press conference, Owen Coyle analysed what went wrong as Chennaiyin FC conceded a shocking first loss of the season against ISL debutants Mohammedan SC. Coyle pointed out the miscommunication between the defenders and the goalkeeper saying that his side’s defensive error gifted the Mohammedan strikers an opportunity to put the ball into an empty net. The tactician also said that the rapport needs to be built for the entire team, not only in particular areas.

Owen Coyle said, “If Samik (Mitra) holds his position (PC) Laldinpuia will pass it back. Then there’s no danger. So of course that’s a very avoidable goal, which is doubly frustrating because we’d started the game really well and we probably could have been a couple of goals in front.”

The mentor opined that the game was in Chennaiyin FC’s hands for the first 30 minutes and they were dominating the game in pivotal areas with good crosses and headers, but failing to score a goal was a bit frustrating. Elaborating further Owen Coyle said that his side was visibly lagging behind in quite a few departments.

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The Scottish manager continued, “We started really well. But you need to get the goals when you’re on top. We’re a team that’s shown we can always come back and we did. Listen, we thought we were really spirited in the second half without being overly fluent. But I thought the spirit was there, and the drive was there. The tenacity to try and get back the game to get the equalizer and then obviously look to go from there.”

The Chennaiyin FC head coach feels his side didn’t deserve a loss, but the self-made errors snatched any hopes of a turnaround, away from them. He said that these kinds of errors need to be punished. He remarked, “What was wrong was we made bad decisions. We made a terrible decision, a terrible error that led to the goal. That has nothing to do with a high line, a low block, or anything else. That’s just a complete mix-up between two players; huge individual errors that cost us dearly because had it still continued, there’s no doubt we’re going to go on and score the goal.”

The mentor also spoke about Mohammedans SC‘s defensive game in the second half. According to him, the added time should have been 17 minutes, instead of the seven minutes allotted. But he admitted that there is no excuse other than to blame themselves for the loss and improve their performance henceforth.

Owen Coyle concluded, “So anyway, listen, that’s not making excuses. We shot ourselves in the foot tonight. We’ve got nobody to blame but ourselves because we’ve made a couple of terrible errors and at the other end we weren’t clinical enough and we could have been even late on one drop. (Wilmar) Jordan (Gill) nearly gets the equalizer.

“Look as if he’d scored the one that was cleared off the line. Ryan (Edwards) also headed one just like that. So with loads of opportunities, there’s no doubt about that. And on another day you would have had those goals. But what you can’t do is keep gifting goals that were done and that needs to be better for sure.”

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