Jamshedpur are very strong defensively, admits Sergio Lobera

The Spaniard along with defender Vignesh Dakshinamurthy addressed the media ahead of the game on Saturday.

Mumbai City FC will face Jamshedpur FC in a crucial Indian Super League clash at the Tilak Maidan Stadium in Vasco on Saturday. The Islanders would be hoping to secure a win and take a step ahead in their race to finish on top of the table. Meanwhile, the Men of Steel will need to defeat Sergio Lobera and Co. by a big margin to stay in the playoffs race.

Lessons learnt from Bengaluru FC game

The Islanders' head coach Sergio Lobera spoke to the media and gave his thoughts on the lessons learnt from the Bengaluru FC game. He said, “I feel we need to work. We need to continuously improve in some aspects during the game. My feeling is obviously we conceded four goals, which is a big number. We had lots of chances to score goals and finally, if we had all the goals, we would have won the game. But we know we need to improve and work on it. We need to work in defence with good numbers and obviously we need to be clinical with our chances.”

Plan to stop Valskis

Nerijus Valskis, the Golden Boot awardee from last season has been one of the mainstays for Jamshedpur FC in a topsy-turvy season. When questioned if there are any particular plans to stop the Lithuanian, Sergio Lobera replied, “No, I think it’s impossible for one player to win one game. We play against a team and Jamshedpur are a very good team."

"They are very strong defensively and it’s difficult to find final passes in their half and it’s not only about one player. (If) you need to win one game, you need to work as a team. Obviously, there are very good players in every team and our focus is to play against a very good team like Jamshedpur FC.”

Blessings in disguise

Mumbai City FC have qualified for the playoffs, however, to win the League-Winners' Shield and qualify for AFC Champions League, they need to finish in the first position in the league phase. Sergio Lobera believes it is a 'good' thing and quipped, “I think we are in a very good position. We are in this position because we have done a very good job so far. Obviously, from the last game, we need to improve, but it is difficult competing against very good teams. It is not a normal situation where you play 10 games in a row win eight and draw two.”

“We are competing with very good teams and ATK Mohun Bagan are doing a very good job. But I am very happy and positive to arrive at this stage with three games to go,” he further added.

Tactical approach

The Spaniard gave an insight on the team's tactics and said, “The most important thing is to create chances and we did that. We need to be clinical in these actions. Finally (although), we scored two goals, we lost the game (against BFC)."

“We need to improve our defence. In the next games, we play against different teams with different philosophies. The most important thing as a coach is we need to be ourselves, stay loyal to our style of play. It is possible for bad things to happen and we need to be ready to react in those situations. In the 90 minutes it’s impossible that everything is amazing and everything is good," he concluded.

Vignesh Dakshinamurthy on his preparations

Along with Sergio Lobera, defender Vignesh Dakshinamurthy too was part of the pre-match press conference. He gave his thoughts on the remaining three games of the season by saying, "The coming three games are very important to us. We've put a lot of effort to be in this place and we don't want to lose it easily. There is no chance of letting it easy go, we will fight for it."

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