Cesar Ferrando dissapointed with his side's second half display, David James happy with comeback

The Men of Steel wasted a two-goal lead as the South Indian side came back from behind in a thrilling draw.

Kerala Blasters FC produced an incredible second-half performance to come back from two goals down and salvage a point against Jamshedpur FC at the JRD Tata Sports Complex in Jamshedpur on Monday. Tim Cahill and Michael Soosairaj put the hosts in front in the first period before Slavisla Stojanovic and CK Vineeth brought Kerala back level.

At the post-match press conference, David James shared his thoughts on the performance of substitute Seiminlen Doungel who led the fightback for Kerala. “We made a couple of changes in the first half but it didn’t work. After the second goal I feared that the result for us might have been bad. We needed to make a change. I did tell Doungel that he had to score a goal.  He gave two assists and, in my book, two assists are the same as one goal. He did very well. It was a tough decision not to play him. But we felt we needed to make a slight change,” James said.

.@KeralaBlasters made a fantastic comeback at Jamshedpur in the last 20 minutes of #JAMKER to draw level with hosts @JamshedpurFC, sharing a point each in the process. More videos: https://t.co/mrtZlxvu6i #ISLRecap #LetsFootball #HeroISL #FanBannaPadega pic.twitter.com/UOSSYp03r2

— Indian Super League (@IndSuperLeague) October 29, 2018

Watch: Jamshedpur 2-2 Kerala

The Englishman admitted that he was pleased with the draw, given the quality of the opposition. “We tried to change the way we play but it didn’t work. Tim Cahill scored against me with a header a few years ago so I’m not surprised to see him score today. But you know, in the second half we changed our approach and our mindset was very different. We stopped Jamshedpur from getting three points today, so I am quite happy with the draw.”

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From Jamshedpur’s end, Cesar Ferrando took questions from the media at the post-match press conference. The Spaniard was disappointed with his team’s second-half performance that saw them fail to hold on to a two-goal advantage. “We made two mistakes again, a third one with the penalty. In the first half, we played well. Tim gave us a great start with a good header. In the second half, we lost the ball a lot and we didn’t keep the ball enough generally. Because of that, the team suffered a lot. We could have scored more goals in the first half because of the way we played,“ he said.

The 59-year-old also pointed out how difficult it is to pick up a victory with so many strong teams in the league before admitting he was pleased to come away with a draw in the end. “It is very difficult in this league to win matches, because there are many strong teams. Kerala Blasters FC is a strong team and our next match will be against a strong team. Our aim is always to win games and we look to do that against FC Goa. We are at least getting points and that is a good thing.”