TG Purushothaman reflects on Kerala Blasters' top six hopes in ISL

East Bengal beat the Kerala Blasters 2-1 at the VYBK Stadium in ISL on Friday

Under interim coach TG Purushothaman, two consecutive wins and a draw had helped the Kerala Blasters regain some momentum after Mikael Stahre was sacked. However, the Blasters have suffered the latest setback after a loss to East Bengal in the Indian Super League (ISL).

The Red and Gold Brigade had 45% possession on the night, however that didn’t deter them as they registered more shots to test Sachin Suresh. PV Vishnu and Hijazi Maher got the decisive goals on the night as East Bengal won 2-1.

Kerala Blasters’ interim head coach TG Purushothaman was quizzed about his team’s performance in the game. Here is what he said…

Kerala Blasters’ “Big Three” not scoring against East Bengal!

Kerala Blasters has one of the best attacks in the league with Jesus Jimenez, Adrian Luna, and Noah Sadaoui contributing to goals. Kwame Peprah too came in against East Bengal but none of the players were able to find the back of the net.

Overall, Kerala had a total of 11 shots out of which only two were on target. Danish Farooq scored a late goal in the 84th minute but it only turned out to be a consolation for the Southern club. East Bengal on the other hand had six of their 13 shots on target.

When asked about the Blasters’ attackers failing to score last night, TG Purushothaman said, “Yeah, obviously. If we didn’t score, it meant we didn’t go out successfully in our attack. This is the nature of football.”

“We did score one goal. But what chances have we created, I think we don’t deserve to be in a situation like this. We’ll work really sensibly hard for the next match.”

Kerala Blasters still targeting the top six?

The latest loss does not help the Kerala Blasters’ chances to reach the playoffs. They remain 8th in the ISL points table and have now given Punjab FC a chance to surpass them. The Shers will face Jamshedpur FC on Tuesday.

When asked about the race for the playoff spots, TG Purushothaman said that his side is not focused on the top six spots at the moment. Rather he said that his team are taking things game by game and are hoping to improve in terms of results.

The Kerala Blasters coach said, “Yeah, we are not looking forward to be in the Super 6 or anything like that. We are taking every match, match by match. Now we have to focus on the next match. That’s it and we’ll come out.”

Kerala Blasters next face Chennaiyin FC at the Marina Arena. Noah Sadaoui ran the show in the reverse fixture as the Blasters won 3-0 and they will certainly be hoping for something similar next Thursday.

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