SC East Bengal suffered their third consecutive defeat in their maiden ISL journey against North East United, today.
The gaffer Mr. Fowler fielded almost the same team that played against Mumbai, except Sehnaz Singh who came in the defense for injured Danny Fox. Despite the humiliating loss against Mumbai the team started bright and tried to dominate possession from the beginning. Jaquous Maghoma looked more mobile and he controlled the midfield well. In the defense Sehnaz was looking strong and had a non nonsense attitude which gave the backline much needed solidity.
The Red and Gold army was really unlucky to be denied a clear penalty shout when Maghoma was tripped inside the box with the referee Santosh Kumar standing very close. How he failed to award that penalty is something only he could explain. With this kind refereeing no amount of money or effort can improve Indian football. Coming out from the setback the Kolkata giants kept mounting pressure on the North East defense but the lack of fire power upfront was again very evident. Balwant Singh was a mere passenger without any thrust or intent and as a result despite having a good pressure East Bengal never got to create any real opportunity. Just after the water break disaster struck. Which can be at best called a freak goal put North East ahead. A series of mistakes ended in a weird deflection of Surchandra who was against having a nightmare of a game and rolled into the net.
After the lemon break Mr Fowler introduced CK Vineeth in place of Balwant,. This was a welcome move as Vineeth showed the much needed energy and thrust to get behind the North East defense line. East Bengal midfield was combining well to pull north east defense toward the center and opening the flanks but again lack of quality delivery let them down. North east defense looked quite organized and they nullified any aerial threat that East Bengal wingers threw at them. East Bengal was again unjustly let down by the ref as he again failed to spot a clear hand ball in front of North East goal. In this level of matches if one team is denied two clear penalties it becomes very hard to come back and that exactly what happened. In the fag end of the game North East got another goal from a counter as the whole EB tam was busy looking for a late equalizer.
One thing can be said that the team is gelling slowly and the foreigners especially Maghoma is coming to his element. It is good to see that Mr. Fowler is going for an open positive game instead of playing for a draw. With time this team can really bring joy to the Red and Gold faithful.
