SAFF Championship 2013: We are wasting too many chances – Sunil Chhetri

India captain Sunil Chhetri rued the missed chances for his team’s unconvincing showing in their opening two matches at SAFF Championship 2013. India needed an injury time freekick from the skipper to earn a point against Bangladesh on Saturday and the star striker believes that the poor finishing is putting pressure on his side.

“I think the only main problem we are having is that we are wasting too many chances. Against Pakistan, I missed a lot of opportunities and even today myself and few others in attack were wasteful. That puts pressure on the team, so I am sure if we get our finishing sorted, everything else will fall in place,” Sunil told the reporters after the Bangladesh game.

The 29-year-old further explained that India must take their chances in the remainder of the tournament as they do lack in confidence due to recent bad results.

“Look what is happening is once we are not taking our opportunities the frustration is increasing. We need to make the most of our chances because recently we haven’t won enough games and that is playing in the team’s mind. Today had I scored from the early chance it would have been a much different game,” the Arjuna Awardee stated.

While Wim Koevermans once again hit out at the congested tournament schedule, Sunil wasn’t willing to make excuses, stating ‘once we start scoring from our chances everything will be fine’.

The skipper was also asked about a minor verbal spat between Nallappan Mohanraj and Mehtab Hossain after the game. While many of the travelling Indian journalists made a big issue of the whole situation, Sunil played it down by telling a joke but admitted that he shouldn’t have lost his temper in the first half when he apparently shoved a Bangladesh defender but got away with a yellow card.

“It was my fault, I should have behaved more responsibly. It only shows I am human and will have to ensure that I don’t repeat such a thing in the future,” Sunil said.