It’s going to be a tight game against Kerala Blasters, feels Stuart Baxter

The tactician also revealed his players will not approach any game with overconfidence.

Odisha FC are now the only team in the Indian Super League 2020/21 to have yet to register their first victory of the term. The outfit lost to SC East Bengal by a scoreline of 3-1 in their last fixture, which was their sixth defeat in eight games. Stuart Baxter is under the most pressure among all the coaches in the league and the upcoming fixture against fellow strugglers Kerala Blasters could be the decider for his future. The tactician spoke ahead of the clash during the media interaction along with Jerry Mawihmingthanga.

Discussion with players after last game

Having endured yet another defeat, the tactician was asked about his comments to the team after the game. He responded by saying, “The biggest challenge that we have at the moment is despite playing quite well in most games, we are not turning that into results. Those issues after the game, those are the things that we have been speaking about.”

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Solving persistent defensive woes

The Juggernauts have now conceded the most amount of goals in the league. When asked about how this can be resolved, the coach explained, “People sometimes equate defensive errors with bad defending. The case has been that in the middle of a good period of play, one of our players made poor decisions and they made poor mistakes.

“We have to make sure first of all that we are making confident decisions, that we are making strong decisions and then we will not bring those mistakes in,” he went on to add.

Opinion on Kerala Blasters

The 67-year-old was also asked about his opinions on KBFC, who are also going through a rut in form. He said, “Every opponent that we have is an opponent that potentially we can get a good result against, but every opponent we have potentially is a top of the league opponent. Every game I see is very competitive.

“I have seen lots of their games and I think it’s going to be a tight game. Our boys are certainly not going to take any game over-confident. but certainly I want us to go into the game knowing we can win this game,” Baxter went on to inform.  

Jerry Mawihmingthanga on bio-bubble

The winger also took part in the pre-match interaction and talked about his experience living in the bio-bubble. He said, “Even when we came down here and stayed in quarantine for more than 10 days, we came down with fitness. It’s quite hard for the players, but there is no complaining, even the other teams have faced this.”

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Working with Stuart Baxter

The 23-year-old also praised the Englishman for trusting him during his comeback from injury. In this regard he said, “He put the belief in me, told me to get more on the ball. When someone believes in you, you believe in yourself more and you can give more for the team. If the coach believes in me, it brings a lot of confidence to improve myself.”

Message to fans and & teammates

The media interaction concluded with Jerry sending a heartfelt message to the fans and his teammates, by saying, “To all my teammates and also to the fans, we are a family, we are always together. in the hard times we stick together as a family no matter what. I hope we will get what you want soon.”

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