Steve Coppell delighted with win, Cesar Ferrando confident on making it to playoffs

Both tacticians remained optimistic after Sunday evening's clash in Kolkata.

ATK picked up their first-ever win over Jamshedpur FC, defeating them 2-1 at the Salt Lake Stadium, Kolkata on Sunday. Manuel Lanzarote’s brace of free-kicks in the first half, turned out to be enough to give Steve Coppell’s side three points and despite a goal from Mario Arques, Jamshedpur couldn’t complete the comeback.

Cesar Ferrando was asked about what went wrong for his side, resulting in the loss. He said, “I think we made too many mistakes because the player who falls in the box after making surging runs was poor. We made two big mistakes which resulted in the goals."

"My keeper didn’t make any saves throughout the match, they only scored from the two free-kicks they had. You can’t let an opposition player make a run from the halfway line and we were made to pay for allowing that," he added.

 

 

 

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Watch: ATK 2-1 Jamshedpur FC highlights

The Jamshedpur tactician brushed away talk of Jamshedpur’s top-four chances being over after this match. He said, “No, I don’t think so. We still have four matches to go and the most important is the match at Mumbai. We need to win all matches and have to fight until the end."

"There are difficult matches with all the teams. We need to show a better fighting spirit in the next matches. We need to try to win at Mumbai.”

Carlos Calvo and Tim Cahill's presence was missed in the game. Talking about whether his team missed them badly the Spaniard said, “If you play a team like ATK, you have three players injured and one suspended, it’ll be difficult to win. But, as I said yesterday, I have no excuses for the game.“

When asked about whether he felt his young attackers underperformed he said, “We must understand that it was a poor match. Farukh (Choudhary) and (Sumeet) Passi played very well. There are no players to replace them for this match. They are the kind of players who can play one match very good and one match not that well. However, I’m very happy with their performance.”

Steve Coppell seemed satisfied with the win and upon being asked about whether this performance showed ATK in their most settled state he said, “Well, it looked solid for me. We had a real threat going forward and tried to use our pace and mobility to hurt them. We toyed with the idea of leaving that until the last half an hour."

The shape fits a lot of the players. If you’re asking me now, I’ll probably say yes we did. I think we have recognized our strengths and weaknesses and our fitness levels as well. We have to see how the players react to this as we have two difficult games ahead,” he explained.

Edu Garcia was the star of the show. Coppell was asked about his impressions on the Spaniard and said, “Edu is a quality player. You see that in his movement. He hasn’t trained this week at all. He had a knock on his ankle, but he came through tonight playing almost the full 90-odd minutes."

"He compliments players. Good players always compliment each other. The way he gets on the ball, not only effects the game, but effects players around him."

"That’s the real bonus for me. He has that drive and determination, which allows him to create the chances. He’s difficult to stop when he’s in full flight. It was a real bonus to bring him in January,” he opined.

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When asked about why he changed his players up he explained, “Before the game, it was fairly obvious we had to win the game. We needed to attack better. We wanted to get Manu (Manuel Lanzarote) into the field as he was determined. Arnab (Mondal) came in. He has been so diligent in training and I felt did a terrific job. He’s feeling good as we all do."

"We want to make sure that this season lasts as long as possible. The first step on that was to get the result tonight. The change was to add more punch upfront. I felt we needed a bit more pace beyond the attack,” he added.

When quizzed on whether ATK could’ve controlled the game better Coppell opined, “Yes, I would say that. But, human nature is such that If you have something you have to protect it. At half=time we needed to protect what we got."

"To be honest, they didn’t really create a great deal. I got very concerned when they scored. But I wasn’t that concerned not to get a win. They played a distinctive style which is hard to play against. But I’m delighted we got the three points,” he explained.

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Finally, Coppell was questioned about whether conceding late is a surmounting problem for ATK. He said, “I felt it’s just a byproduct of protecting what we got. We’re training on not camping too deep in our box. I felt we were guilty of that."

"When we got half-clearances, we just squeezed out rather than putting it out. Every goal conceded is a concern. We don’t like conceding them and we’ll review the footage to do better the next time.”