ISL 2019-20: Chennaiyin FC 2-2 Odisha FC | 5 Talking Points 

#3 Gombau's muddled thinking stops the Odisha charge

Marcos Tebar was never comfortable when moved to play at centre-back

Before the break, Vinit Rai and Marcos Tebar combined to give Odisha the edge in the middle of the park, with crisp passing and intelligent pressing. But inexplicably, Rai was taken off at the break, to be replaced by Bikramjit Singh.

Just five minutes later, Bikramjit gave the ball away under no pressure and led to Valskis's first goal. Odisha had truly lost the impetus in midfield with Bikramjit being tentative, but Gombau only proceeded to make it a bigger challenge for his side to win the midfield battle, when he pushed Tebar back to centre-back after Carlos Delgado was forced off.

With Sajid Dhot and Rana Gharami on the bench, and being natural centre-backs, it was surely a better option to introduce one of those two at that time, rather than Martin Perez.

That meant a double whammy for Odisha. Tebar is not a natural centre-back, and was never comfortable in the few minutes he played there, before being taken off. The absence of both Tebar and Rai in midfield, then, meant that Anirudh Thapa and Firtulescu could go on to dictate proceedings with their passing ability.

Even though Odisha managed to equalise and take a point out of the game, one can't help but feel that but for some curious decisions from the manager, they could have gone away with all three points.