Antonio Iriondo: We took a risk with Sumeet Passi at right-back

The Jamshedpur FC boss revealed that he is proud of the performance of his players.

Jamshedpur FC failed to make their home advantage count as they went down 3-0 against ATK FC at the JRD Tata Sports Complex in Jamshedpur on Sunday. The Antonio Iriondo-coached outfit hardly created anything noteworthy and were on the backfoot for most of the 90 minutes.

At the post-match press conference, however, Iriondo began by defending his young left-back Sandip Mandi who was at fault for ATK’s first goal. The Jamshedpur head coach said, “We have been trying different things at left-back, but nothing is working. We needed to try something different. Mandi is part of the squad, so we tried with him. It didn’t work as good as we hoped.”

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“But it was not the only change we did. We also took a risk with (Sumeet) Passi at right-back. He had a great match. Mandi’s first pass was a big mistake, but he is just a 17-year-old. He needs time. Apart from that mistake, he didn’t do a bad match. The thing is that we don’t have any alternatives in that position and the players that we have been trying, they haven’t performed well. So, we have to try different things because our situation is not good. Unfortunately, it didn’t work,” Antonio Iriondo added.

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The Spaniard also analysed the game and felt his players did the best they could under the circumstances. “We were playing against a very good team. We are trying a lot of different things with injuries. After the first mistake, we went 1-0 at half-time. We came out with a lot of energy, pushed them into their box and then we had a player sent off.”

“Even with one man down, we kept trying. But they are good at counter attacks and scored two goals. It is something normal because we were attacking. We lost 3-0, which looks like a big loss, but we have to analyse the situation. I’m very proud of the players. They gave everything they had in the match,” concluded the Jamshedpur head coach.