The new season of the Indian Super League saw its first 0-0 draw as NorthEast Untied and Kerala Blasters shared the spoils in a very tightly contested affair. The Yellow Army will definitely rue their missed opportunities and a chance to secure a win against the Highlanders. Both Sahal Abdul Samad and Jorge Pereyra Diaz missed easy chances in the game as the Blasters are yet to register a win from their first two fixtures.
While there might be a lot of reasons to be angry or disappointed Ivan Vukomanovic looked at the positives and was rather optimistic in his approach. The Serbian was happy with how his team defended against the Northeast Untied setpieces.
“I’m happy in general (regarding both attacking and defensive set-pieces). I’d say that we were more focused in the case of defensive set-pieces. We were present in numbers, we were compact and did well in those situations,” he began.
“Looking at the defensive statistics from the last season of the ISL, it looked like many goals were created from set pieces. We’re happy that we didn’t allow something like that today,” he continued.
Vukomanovic has also given the fans the impression that he is looking to attack and win matches. So fans were a bit sceptical as Enes Sipovic started this game beside Marco Leskovic and in the end, the selection paid its dividends.
“I think this was the first time that we played two foreign centre-backs together, since we started. Even in our pre-season friendlies, they did not really play the full 90 minutes together,” Vukomanovic admitted.
The Serbian tactician was happy with the work rate of the two foreign defenders. He highlighted how two defenders can bring that stability at the back and a team can build from there.
The Kerala Blasters head coach had an idea that his team needed to attack and so they did. But they missed some really easy chances to score goals. “We knew that in this game, we had to dominate – which we did when you look at the chances that we had. We had good chances up-front, to score in both halves,” he said.
It is once again turning into the same story as the fans are getting desperate to not see their favourite club win matches. The Blasters will now face Bengaluru FC on 28th November.
