Sergio Lobera: We need to analyze our style of play

The Islanders are now at the top of the Indian Super League table.

The Sergio Lobera-led Mumbai City FC secured a convincing 2-0 victory over Odisha FC in the Indian Super League and are now slotted at the top of the points table. Bartholomew Ogbeche scored from the spot in the 30th minute and Rowllin Borges doubled the lead at the stroke of the half-time. 

Vignesh Dakshinamurthy delivered a fine performance from the left-back position, even fouling Shubham Sarangi to win a penalty for his side too. Head coach Sergio Lobera was probed whether the 22-year-old’s outing was a testament to Mumbai’s squad depth. 

“Yes, I think as I told you before, it’s very important to have a very good squad. We have some problems with some players. As a coach, like example Mandar(Rao Dessai) now is a personal problem. We can use one player, replace him and play very well and I am very happy with the performance of Vignesh. I agree, it’s one example that we have a very good squad,” Lobera replied. 

After a couple of underwhelming matches, the metropolis club has started getting into the groove with successive victories over SC East Bengal and the Juggernauts. They have been clinical going ahead and maintained a clean sheet in both these games. 

Asked whether his team has grasped his philosophy properly, the tactician claimed, “During some periods of the game I feel this. But, for example, the first half is I think not good for us. Because, we can improve a lot of things. It’s not only about the result, we need to analyze our style of play. The second half we played very well and the most important thing is to keep doing 90 minutes of our style of play.”

The Islanders took 15 shots but only three of them were on target. Moreover, Mourtada Fall’s goal in the first-half was ruled out as the referee deemed that the defender had fouled Odisha’s custodian Kamaljit Singh whilst nodding the ball in. Lobera called for more ambition from his players going ahead as he said, “I think it’s important for us. We need to keep the possession, to have the ball but we need to be ambitious in the last third and we need to score. I think it’s very important for us to keep the ball but play forward and to try to create a lot of chances.”

After scoring a brace in the last game, Adam Le Fondre was benched for this encounter as Ogbeche made it to the starting XI. Lobera was enquired whether it’s a challenge to manage both these top-quality strikers. 

“With persons like them, it’s easy. They are very good players but very good persons and I think they understand very well that the first is the team and the second is the individual situation. But, this is my job to manage the collective target with individual targets and I am very happy with the attitude and we need to keep working in the same way,” the head coach responded. 

Mumbai are tied on the number of points(9) with ATK Mohun Bagan. However, they are placed on the top, courtesy to their better goal difference. Addressing whether holding on to the top spot adds additional pressure to the team, Lobera quipped, “We need to put our focus in the game, not on the table. We need to put our focus to always win the game. We need to prepare well for the game and the consequence is the position on the table. We don’t need to think about this when we are playing during the game.”

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