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New Delhi - East Bengal coach Trevor Morgan rued his team’s lacklustre performance in front of the goal as the Kolkata giants slumped to a 0-1 loss to ONGC in an I-League clash here at the Ambedkar Stadium on Tuesday.
Edeh Chidi and Robin Singh wasted numerous chances as East Bengal lost ground on league leaders Churchill Brothers, who are a point ahead despite having played two games less.
“The game should have been over at halftime, so many chances came our way but the strikers were very wasteful,” Morgan told reporters after the game.
“It was a one-sided game in terms of ball possession but they punished us for our poor play upfront. Bad finishing cost us the game.”
However, Morgan still failed to rule out winning the league title saying the loss was “not a knockout blow”.
“We are still not out of title contention. The loss was not a knockout blow but we will now be chasing the league leaders for the rest of the season,” said the Britain born Australian.
“We need to win the next eight games out of 10. Today even though we dominated the first half, we paid a heavy price for our missed chances but we are still not out.”
The elated ONGC coach Santosh Kashyap praised his defence for a superlative effort.
“Every victory is special. This is not our first win against a big team this season. We beat Dempo and drew with Prayag United so beating top teams is always good,” said Kashyap.
“We were excellent in defence. We did a lot of pressing in our own half and didn’t give them any space to play in the middle.”
Kashyap came in as a replacement of Subrata Bhattacharya and has been at the helm of ONGC for a month. Since his takeover ONGC have won three of the four matches, drawing one, giving them 10 points from a possible 12.
“When I came in, the players were a little low on confidence but with three wins our players are very motivated now,” remarked Kashyap.
