ISL 2018-19: What Chennaiyin FC need to do to turn their season around

#3 They have been owned in midfield

The Chennaiyin FC midfield has been overpowered by their opponents in most of the games (Image Courtesy: ISL)

More than the absence of Sereno, it is the unavailability of defensive midfielder Dhanapal Ganesh that has really hurt Chennaiyin.

Last season Ganesh covered large swathes of the pitch cleaning up plays and breaking up attacks, supporting his defence brilliantly. His ability to win the aerial ball was also a huge plus to the side.

With Bikramjit Singh also having left to join Delhi, Chennaiyin FC lack an enforcer in the middle of the park and it has been telling.

Against the best midfields in the league, they've been completely overpowered. Goa's Ahmed Jahouh, Edu Bedia and Lenny Rodrigues ran circles around Chennaiyin while NorthEast pair Francisco Gallego and Redeem Tlang also dominated their matchup.

For the Delhi game, the omission of Mailson allowed Gregory to put an extra foreigner in midfield.

The combination fielded against Delhi looks Chennaiyin's best bet - Andrea Orlandi providing control and patient possession to allow Anirudh Thapa and Raphael Augusto to concentrate on their passing more.

Thapa in the first three games had been forced to do too much defensive covering work which left him fatigued and resulted in his passes becoming errant leading to unnecessary turnovers in possession.

If Gregory can put together the right midfield around him it should go towards solving some of their woes. And if that involves playing the extra foreign midfielder then one of Mailson, Eli Sabia or Inigo Calderon from the back-three is going to have a reduced role the rest of the season.