ISL: Delhi Dynamos 0-1 Kerala Blasters - 5 talking points

On a night which saw record breaking attendance at Delhi’s Jawahar Lal Nehru stadium, the visitors deservedly won the game with relative ease. A strong contingent of the away fans cheered their team on in this end-to-end affair. This was a must win game for the home side but they failed in almost every department and their hopes of finishing in the top 4 have now all but gone out of the window.Kerala Blasters now sit in third place with 12 points while Delhi Dynamos are still at the bottom with 7. Kerala came to win and their gameplan worked relatively well as they were able to contain the home side in their own backyard. Here are the five talking points from the game:

#1 High tempo encounter

The pace of the game never ceased to drop with both the teams launching a lot of attacks. Both the teams went at it and were going for the three points. Both halves witnessed end to end action with little or no decisive breaks. The midfields of both teams couldn’t really keep possession well, and that resulted in a lot of counters both ways.

The first half was mostly about giving the ball away in a hurry to attack but the visitors finally organized things and scored a goal to calm things. Kerala Blasters did not even sit back after they scored and could’ve easily added a couple more to their tally while the hosts failed to convert the possession in their opponents’ half into any real chance. Lack of composure to deal with a high tempo game cost Delhi Dynamos tonight.

#2 Impact of the bench players made the difference

As neither team got close to scoring despite the first half being an end-to-end affair, Delhi Dynamos were forced to bring on the young Stijn Houben in place of the experienced centre back Wim Raymaekers at half time while Penn Orji was brought on in place of Raphael for the visitors in the 55th minute. The massive impact of these substitutions was seen some time later, and it delighted the sizeable away population, who filled a huge section of the stadium.

As soon as he was brought on to the pitch, Orji set up Sabeeth to run past one and take a shot which went wide but the away attack had been given a dose of flair. The Nigerian striker, who has played in the I-league for sometime now, showed great composure on the counter when he slotted in Iain Hume’s cross. Raymaekers’ absence and Houben’s lack of experience made it a situation ready to be exploited, and Orji did it pretty well for the away side.

#3 Van Hout prevented further embarrassment

Kristof van Hout had a better showing on this day after having made some mistakes in the previous outing against FC Goa. The Belgian keeper has saved shots from one-on-one situations for the North-Indian outfit in almost every game and was on top of his game in this one.

Right after the away team took the lead, Milagres and Hume got the better of the two centre backs-Anwar and Stijn but Van Hout’s height kept the home side in the game. The Canadian striker was denied by Van Hout on another occassion from close range in the 86th minute to keep the score 1-0 . His commanding presence in the box and the ability to cleanly catch most corner kicks has been a strong asset for Delhi Dynamos but they have failed to make it count with their weaknesses in the other positions.

#4 Players being played out of position

The Goan midfielder has played three games for the national side and is an I-league regular. At the age of 26, it is well established that his defensive abilities and strength outweigh his attacking vigour and ball skills.

A decent run of games under Harm Van Veldhoven in the maiden ISL campaign has put him in the contention for the national side again but this day was different as he was made to play on the right wing. On an earlier occasion, the Verna-born player had played at right back and the wingers ahead didn’t rely on him to overlap during every attack, which meant that his job was just to defend and go forward on the odd occasion.

This wasn’t the case today as his position down the right flank slowed down the home side’s attacking pace because of his lack of comfort in the attacking third. He kept running hard but always had to wait for support or an overlapping run since his lack of experience and proficiency in that position on a very important night did not help his side’s cause.

#5 Del Piero should\'ve scored

The Italian forward who spent his last year on the other side of the globe in Australia, must be scratching his head wondering how he still hasn’t scored in the ISL. He’s never been so close as he was in this game. The former World Cup winner was kept on the bench for the previous outing against Goa and was fresh to start this one.

He was involved in almost every attack the home team had to offer and on the 40th minute, he was about to head in Junker’s cross from the right on the far post but it was prevented from going in by his own teammate- Adil Khan, who also tried to take a similar position to score.

In what is already an uphill battle for them, Delhi definitely need their marquee player to deliver, if they want to have a chance of making it a close race for the top 4, they need Del Piero to be doing what he does best, scoring and setting up goals.