ISL 2022: Blasters look to rotate players after new schedule
Kerala Blasters will look to collect full points against NorthEast United which is currently last in the 11-team league table
Published : Feb 03, 2022 20:46 IST
After a loss in the last game, against Bengaluru FC, Kerala Blasters FC gets a nice chance to get back to winning ways as it takes on lowly NorthEast United in the Indian Super League at Vasco's Tilak Maidan on Friday.
Returning to the league after being in COVID isolation for more than a fortnight, the Blasters boys gave a fighting display against Bengaluru. And the side will look to collect full points against NorthEast which is currently last in the 11-team league table and which has lost nine of the 15 games it has played so far this season including a 5-0 loss to Hyderabad FC in its last game.
But head coach Ivan Vukomanovic has many other things to think over as the Blasters will have to play seven games in the next one month as per the revised ISL schedule.
“From our side, we need to take care about the health and the medical status of the players. Because we want them to go through February, through all those games, well. Probably, we will rotate a couple of players, giving some of them time and space to recover,” said Vukomanovic.
Meanwhile, NorthEast head coach Khalid Jamil made it clear that thinking about the big loss in the last game will not help.
“We are focusing on tomorrow's game. We are not thinking about the heavy defeat in the last game,” he said.
The Blasters are definitely a good team and doing well this season. But one good point is we have all the players with us now. So we should do good and we are ready for this match.”