Chennaiyin and Odisha prepare to exchange blows in round two

by Suchit Halder January 12, 2021

Goa, January 12: Odisha FC and Chennaiyin’s meeting over the weekend ended in a dour draw. They face each other in the Hero Indian Super League midweek clash yet again, at the GMC Stadium in Bambolim on Wednesday, hoping for goals and far more decisive performance from their respective teams.

The reverse fixture saw both teams missing a number of chances to take the lead and left both of them in the bottom four. While Odisha stay rooted at the bottom, Chennaiyin have now slipped to 11th. A win on Wednesday, however, will change the script for both of them. But after facing each other just a couple of days ago, there is every chance that the two teams will just cancel each other out again.

This is something that has crossed Odisha coach Stuart Baxter’s mind, but he said that whatever issues stem from having to face the same team twice in four days, it is for both teams to bear. “Is the glass half full or half empty? I think you can look at it both ways. Whatever it is, it is for both teams. If it is a positive, they’ve got just as much positives as we have. The only thing I can say is that it is going to be difficult for both teams,” he said.

Baxter, however, refused to commit on whether he would opt for a change in tactics as to make it difficult for Chennaiyin to predict what his team would do. “It’s a possibility, yes, when you have these doubleheaders. Sometimes you do change tactics. But we have to look at a fresh set of players, we have to look at the injuries. We have a suspension in Jacob (Tratt). So that is on the table. We will make a final decision later in the evening,” he added.

Sunday saw Chennaiyin’s goal-scoring woes in the league continue with Rahim Ali and Jakub Sylvestr both missing golden opportunities to get their team the three points. Chennaiyin have netted the least goals in the league and have now not scored in half the games that they have played. With their main creative force Rafael Crivellaro out for the rest of the season, their forwards can’t afford to be wasteful anymore.

For coach Csaba Laszlo, it is now evident that this is his biggest headache. “Our biggest problem according to me is actually scoring goals. We create a lot of chances. But somehow we haven’t scored enough goals and if you don’t score goals, it is very difficult to win games,” he said.

Credits: ISL Media

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