ISL 2021-22: We certainly didn’t deserve to lose the game – Jamshedpur FC’s Owen Coyle

Jamshedpur FC head coach Owen Coyle reckons they certainly didn’t deserve to lose the game against Bengaluru FC in the 82nd match of the ongoing Hero Indian Super League 2021-22, which was played at the Athletic Stadium, Bambolim on Saturday.

Jamshedpur FC took the lead in the opening minute of the game as Chukwu scored for them. However, Bengaluru FC bounced back in style as Sunil Chhetri equalized in the 55th minute. Subsequently, Cleiton Silva scored a brace for the Blues to get his team over the line.

In fact, Jamshedpur FC took four shots on target but could only convert one. Thus, Jamshedpur FC has fallen to fourth place in the standings as they have six wins from 13 matches.

Reviewing his team’s performance, Owen Coyle said in the post-match press conference, “​​Well, I’m not sure they deserve the win. But you’re right they took the chances. I actually think TP Rehenesh was saving the game for us. And it’s self-inflicted, I mean, a long throw we should deal with, then a goal from a corner in the back and the third one is obviously a horrendous individual mistake. We had some wonderful chances, Gurpreet Singh Sandhu made some great saves. Ultimately, we never took a chance tonight and Bengaluru FC did. But you know, in terms of deserving of it, we certainly deserved something from the match. But that’s the margins in the ISL. We certainly didn’t deserve to lose the game that’s for sure”.

Coyle admitted that they were not up to the mark in the second half of the game after a good first half. The head coach feels they could have scored but could not finish some of their attempts.

He added, “We’re coming off three wins back to back. So we’ve been doing very well.  We were in our rooms for 15-16 days and didn’t do much training. Obviously, a few players were missing tonight due to injuries. But the first half was wonderful and scored a great goal. We could have added to that later. And in the second half, we had some great chances as well. So that’s the nature of this league. We’ll take a punch in the nose, and we’ll look to bounce back very quickly”.

Speaking on Greg Stewart’s performance, Coyle added that the striker had a good game even though he could not find the back of the net. Stewart has scored five goals in 13 matches so far in the tournament.

Coyle concluded, “No Greg was outstanding today. End of the day, sometimes you score goals, sometimes you won’t. But Greg was outstanding today, what he brings to the game, every time when he gets the ball, we get excited because he’s a wonderful talent. It’s always nice to score goals. But he could easily have scored a couple of goals tonight. But at the moment we are not worried about him”.

Jamshedpur FC will next face Kerala Blasters on Thursday at the Athletic Stadium, Bambolim.