Cesar Ferrando happy with his players, John Gregory praises Jamshedpur

The Men of Steel registered their third win of the season as the Marina Machans slumped to their sixth loss.

Jamshedpur FC ran the show at the JRD Tata Sports Complex, beating defending champions Chennaiyin FC 3-1 to jump to the third position in the Hero Indian Super League (ISL) table. Goals from Pablo Morgado and Carlos Calvo had put Cesar Ferrando’s men in command before Raphael Augusto struck to give the visitors some hope. However, Mario Arques quickly slotted home a third to ensure Chennaiyin walked out of Jamshedpur empty-handed.

.@JamshedpurFC return to winning ways on home soil to rise up the #HeroISL standings, while @ChennaiyinFC fall to their sixth defeat of the season.More videos: https://t.co/8jtqJIjojH#ISLRecap #LetsFootball #FanBannaPadega #JAMCHE pic.twitter.com/t0JRm9z98d

— Indian Super League (@IndSuperLeague) November 25, 2018

Watch: Jamshedpur 3-1 Chennaiyin FC

Speaking at the post-match press conference, Jamshedpur head coach Cesar Ferrando dismissed suggestions that his team were the strongest contenders for the title and wanted to focus on their next match away to NorthEast. "I only think of NorthEast. We want to win in NorthEast. I think we improved very well and I am happy with my team. At this moment, the most important thing is the match against NorthEast," he said.

Despite dominating the entirety of the fixture, Jamshedpur had a few difficult moments courtesy of rash decisions by their own players. Ferrando admitted that his team still needed to work on their defending but was confident that they were on the right track. "I think we deserved to win. We made a few mistakes. We defended very well against a good team in set-pieces. But I think we have to improve in every match. If we want a spot in the top four, we need to prevent this (the mistakes) from happening. We must keep a clean sheet. Only in the first match against Mumbai, we kept a clean-sheet. Every match we conceded a goal," he said.

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The Spaniard concluded his press conference by addressing Gourav Mukhi’s six-month suspension, citing it as a significant blow to his squad. "It’s a big blow for us. But without him in the last two matches, we played very well, even against Pune. But it’s a big blow," he said.

Chennaiyin head coach John Gregory opined that his team had an off-day at the office and were unable to deal with the home side’s good start. The Englishman was also impressed with Pablo Morgado’s thunderous goal. "They started very well. That was a big plus for them. They very quick. Scored an incredible goal. Those things normally end up hitting the linesman, or the corner flag or somewhere in the back of the stadium.

But it went into the corner of the net. It was an incredible goal. So, we were 1-0 down and we hadn’t done too much wrong. But Jamshedpur started very well. But then they got a debatable penalty. Suddenly they got a 2-0 lead and it’s tough for us to get back in the game," he said.

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The defending champions were in action after a long layoff due to the international break and that drew suggestions that the team was not quite up to speed. However, the Englishman refused to count the break as an excuse, instead stating that he and his players were confident going into the fixture.

"You can use that as an excuse. But I would never use it as an excuse. We have to be ready for each and every game. We prepared very well for this game. On the back of the victory, the players had been in good spirits. They were very confident coming into this match. I was very confident of the way we’ve been playing and certainly getting the victory in the last game gave us confidence coming into this game. But Jamshedpur should take the credit. They started better than us. And once you get a two-goal lead, it was always difficult for us to be able to get back into the game," he said.