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Defending ISL Champions Chennaiyin FC today announced they had signed forward CK Vineeth and winger Halicharan Narzary from Kerala Blasters. Both players will spend the rest of the season on loan at the Marina Arena.
With the AFC Cup campaign in mind, Chennaiyin have swooped to sign two reputed attacking players, as an addition to their existing attackers, who misfired in the first phase of the ISL.
Jeje Lalpekhlua is yet to open his ISL account for the season. Carlos Salom has one goal in 11 games. Mohammed Rafi has played six minutes all season.
Chennaiyin's top-scorer this season has been Thoi Singh - the Manipuri midfielder has scored four goals this season.
This move hands Vineeth a huge opportunity to resurrect his career, after having stalled a little bit since his move back to the Blasters from Bengaluru FC, where he made his name as a strong attacking force.
The man from Kerala has struck only two goals in 585 minutes of football this season, and that is not something which will fill John Gregory with too much optimism on face value.
But there were also some other external issues for Vineeth at the Blasters, with him and the fans getting into some tiffs on social media. It had gotten to the point where Vineeth told The Hindu that he would definitely move out from Kerala at the end of the season.
Narzary only signed for Blasters at the start of this season, but hasn't managed to impress as much as he'd have liked, scoring only one goal. It didn't help the 24-year-old Assamese that he never had a fixed position under David James, with the Englishman tinkering with his combinations a little too much.
Narzary played at left-back, as a left-winger, and as right-winger under James, and that ensured he could never build enough momentum to kickstart his Kerala Blasters career.
These are important signings for Chennaiyin, given the player registration rules for the AFC Cup, where clubs are only allowed to register four foreigners, of which one must compulsorily be from an Asian country.
Chennaiyin resume their ISL commitments with a trip to Guwahati to face NorthEast United on the 26th of January.
