Antonio Habas: Chennaiyin FC's intensity resulted in their win

The ATK head coach also revealed he feels his side did not perform in their usual self against the Marina Machans.

ATK’s hopes of finishing at the pinnacle of the Indian Super League (ISL) after the end of the league stages was dealt a big blow as they went down to a 1-3 loss against Chennaiyin FC on Sunday. The visitors frustrated them throughout, with strikes from Rafael Crivellaro, Andre Schembri, Nerijus Valskis proving enough to oust the hosts, who failed to regain their top spot. Following the game, ATK head coach Antonio Habas interacted in the post-match press conference.

Antonio Habas conceded defeat and admitted that Chennaiyin FC were the better side on Sunday night. He explained, “I think Chennaiyin won the match fairly. We didn’t have many matches left. There was no intensity or nothing in our performance today. I have to congratulate Chennaiyin.”

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“Today that wasn’t a good performance from us and Chennaiyin outdid us today. Every day you cannot give the same kind of performance. Today the opponent were hungrier for the points than we were. We needed to relax a bit today and that resulted in the defeat," the Spaniard added.

Thoughts On Defensive Worries

Despite being quite wonky defensively on the day, Antonio Habas is not bothered by the defensive worries as the playoffs approached. “I think defensively we don’t have the problem. Today the whole team didn’t perform as usual. They didn’t get the ball to the spaces properly. Today our system just didn’t work well. I have nothing wrong to point out in my players. It was some human mistakes today. Maybe today the team slacked off a bit,” the tactician stated.

Antonio Habas wasn’t worried about Arindam Bhattacharya’s errors either and defended his goalkeeper’s actions as he said, “I don’t think that Arindam is at fault to let go of the ball during crosses. He’s a fantastic goalkeeper and that wasn’t a problem for me today. It’s the goalkeeper’s decision to do whatever they want with the ball.

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“I understand that my team didn’t have the same intensity as the last game. The opponent had the full intensity, which resulted in their win. They showed more intent to win today,” he added.

ATK’s substitutes failed to make an impact either and Antonio Habas suggested that the injury layoffs and fatigue issues could’ve played a part in that. "We wanted to give more opportunity to attack with the changes. Anas’ injury forced an unecessary attacking change. Williams was coming off an injury so he couldn’t play more than 45 minutes either. So this intensity wasn’t the same as usual,” he concluded.