Jose Molina makes big statement about misfiring Mohun Bagan forwards

Dimitri Petratos and Jason Cummings missed many clear goal scoring chances as per Jose Molina.

Mohun Bagan began their 2024-25 AFC Champions League Two campaign in rather frustrating fashion with a 0-0 draw against Ravshan Kulob at the Salt Lake Stadium on Wednesday (18 September). The Mariners did not find it easy against the stubborn backline of the Tajikistan side, but actually had as many as four big chances to score in the final 10 minutes of the game.

Despite that, the likes of Jason Cummings, Dimitri Petratos and Liston Colaco all missed big one-v-one chances. The Mariners have seen their Australian duo unable to score in the last two big matches, while influential midfielder Greg Stewart is yet to hit his best form either.

Mohun Bagan had coach Jose Molina feels that his foreign players’ misifiring form is mainly due to a lack of fitness, as he stated after the draw, “What we want from attackers is to score goals. Jason Cummings, Dimitri Petratos, Greg Stewart are not scoring too many goals but are working really well. But we need goals from them to win matches.

“We are waiting for that and trying to help them to score goals consistently. I think today we were nearest from that goal, because they are getting more and more fitter every day. They need to get fit, they are still not at 100% fitness. But we are closer to the goal.”

Jose Molina was also asked about why Stewart didn’t start the game. This is especially due to the AFC Champions League Two rules removing the cap on foreign players a team can use and Stewart’s creativity allowing Mohun Bagan to create big scoring chances after he came on as a substitute.

The gaffer believes that his entire team performed really well against Ravhsan and only lacked that goal-scoring edge, as Jose Molina explained: “In my opinion, the XI I picked was the best possible lineup for today. No doubt about that. We have great players on the bench knowing that they’ll be tired in the second half and leave more space and more time to break inside the pitch to take advantage of that.

“Sahal Abdul Samad) did a great job in attack and defence, the opponent defended really well. But we moved the ball as fast possible, we ran a lot and then in the end they got tired and allowed us more space to have better options to score at the end.

“Greg Stewart did a great job in the end, Dimitri Petratos did a great job, Jason Cummings did a great job and the only thing they didn’t do was to score. I feel all of my players did a great job in defence and that was very important today for us, try not to concede goals today. We had chances to score, but today the ball didn’t go into the back of the net. Hopefully we will keep working in the same way and score more goals in the next game.

“I’m sure Dimi and Jason wanted to score; Liston had a great chance to score but sometimes these things happen. The final touch isn’t the best, but we need to keep helping them, pushing them and supporting them and that’s what I will keep doing.

“I told them that I was very happy, for them to keep working and tomorrow they’ll have training sessions, and I will keep supporting them. They are Mohun Bagan players, and we need to keep helping and supporting them, they will improve for sure. If we keep working, the next match’s performance will be better,” Jose Molina concluded.

Mohun Bagan are tied in second place in their ACL Two group after the draw against Ravshan, after Tractor SC picked up a 3-0 win over Al-Wakrah in the other game. The Mariners will face Tractor in their next continental game on October 2, but before that, they’re eyes are set on the upcoming Indian Super League (ISL) clash against NorthEast United on Monday (September 23).

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