Des Buckingham hopes for a win against HFC to keep playoffs hope afloat

The Islanders have to win their final match to keep play-off hopes up.

Mumbai City FC play Hyderabad FC in their final fixture of the Indian Super League 2021-22 campaign. While the Nizams have booked their spot at the play-offs, Des Buckingham and his players will have to give their best. The fact remains that Kerala Blasters will have to lose against a beleaguered FC Goa side, but the Islanders can at least control their side of things.

The Head Coach spoke to the press ahead of their ultimate match of the season:

Takeaways from last match that he would like to address in the next game

Des Buckingham: I think we were obviously disappointed to not come away with the result that we wanted from the game. But we don't have too long to put that right. It's two days between that one and the next one. So we've trained today and we're all very much looking forward to this game against Hyderabad FC. Although it's not in our hands anymore we will go out and do everything we possibly can to put ourselves in a position that we want to be in at the end of this game. And then we'll see what happens afterwards. 

Change in approach

Des Buckingham: Yes, we have got two players who have started the last couple of games in (Lallianzuala) Chhangte and Rahul Bheke who will be out through suspension. So, straight away, that opens up opportunities for other players to either come back in or to maybe start if they haven't done already.Also gives us the opportunity to look at other ways we might want to work. But, we'll go through that again in training, but there's definitely two changes to our squad through suspension.

Preparation for AFC Champions League

Des Buckingham: We've got three different scenarios to play out and they're all planned and ready to go. With that the best case is making the grand finals. Second is the semi-finals and of course the other one is if our season comes to an end in the next round. So, that's in the background and ready to go. But, the most important thing is not looking at the Champions League right now. We've got ourselves to a position where if we win our next game, we put ourselves in contention for finals football. That's the only thing that we need to be looking at right now.

Most improved youngsters this season

Des Buckingham: I can only speak for our players at the club. When you actually go through our team and the players that have taken to the field this year, we have a very young team. We've got (Mohammad) Nawaz in goal, (he's) 21. Vignesh (Dakshinamurthy) has played a significant part of the season at left-back, (he's) 23. Mehtab's (Singh) broken through as centre-back and played a good proportion of games now at 23. Amey (Ranawade), again, is 23-years-old at right-back. Apuia has played most of the games in a holding midfield role and he's 21-years-old. Then we've given game time to Vikram (Pratap Singh) at 19-years-old and young Gurkirat (Singh) on the left who comes on at 18. 

So, we've got a lot of young players and there's a lot of players who haven't yet taken to the field, but have the capability to do that. But, I've been very happy with the progression that they've shown. I've spoken to them all year round and they have their own developmental plans. We've certainly worked with them on that. I think that's put us in a good spot. Because when they've come in to compete at this level, which is the level that they can in India; they've shown good ability and they contribute well to the games.

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