Khalid Jamil rues ‘soft’ goal

by Kaushal Shukla March 23, 2015

Mumbai FC once again proved they are a tough nut to crack when they held Pune FC to a 1-1 draw at home despite playing with ten men for an hour after Sampath Kutty Mani saw red.

But Khalid Jamil was slightly bemused not to have got all three points in the bag after Pune FC took a good three quarters of the game to berach their defence and the manner in which Mumbai conceded did not go too well with the Mumbai FC head coach.

“Draw is a good result but the win would have been better. The win was very much in our grasps even with ten men and I felt after playing so well and putting in so much hard work, we conceded a comparatively soft goal. So in that sense it was disappointing”.

Khalid Jamil hailed his team apart from that goal and said they were outstanding and failed all of Pune FC’s ploys to get the equalizer. “Apart from the goal, we were outstanding. They tried everything possible to score the goal but we dealt with everything that they threw at us apart from the goal”.

Jamil had his doubts about the sending off of Sampath Kutty Mani and felt the referee may have made a mistake. ”I did not feel it was a red card. I haven’t watched it on television but my first reaction was that it was not a red card. So I felt the referee made a slight error there”.

The Mumbai FC Head coach was all praise for Taisuke’s opener and said the goal was ‘World Class’. “It was a fantastic goal and I have seen such a goal after a long time. Taisuke is very sharp and he focuses on the minute details and that was the key in that goal. For me the goal was ‘World Class’.

Khalid Jamil felt Abhishek Yadav did well to fill the void left by Josimar’s absence and believes the veteran striker will get sharper with time. “I think Abhishek filled Josimar’s void today. He did everything that was asked of him and he will get sharper as the season progresses after getting more time on the pitch like today”.

Mumbai FC may have been lacking in the technical aspect but they more than made it up with sheer will and some staunch defending and coach Khalid Jamil has the right to be disappointed after his side failed to to capture all three points.

Mumbai FC travel to the Fatorda stadium next to face Salgaocar, a team which they beat 3-0 at Cooperage earlier this season. It will be interesting to see if Mumbai FC can produce similar performances away from home as they have done at Cooperage this season.