ISL 2021 preview: Stuttering Chennaiyin faces off against bottom-placed Odisha

ISL 2021: Chennaiyin FC will look to find its footing in the absence of its skipper Rafael Crivellaro, who has been ruled out of the season due to an injury.

Chennaiyin FC will look to bounce back from a 4-1 defeat against Hyderabad FC in the latest game.

Chennaiyin FC hoped to start 2021 on a positive note after a poor start to the season with just two wins. But things have not gone to plans for the former champion so far in the new year. Earlier in the week, the team got its biggest defeat of the season with a 4-1 thrashing to Hyderabad FC.

On the eve of its match against Odisha FC on Sunday, the team suffered a huge blow when skipper Rafael Crivellaro was ruled out of the season with an ankle injury that he picked up during the match against ATK Mohun Bagan last month.

The skipper was the creative force in the midfield for CFC and, the team looked clueless when he missed a match earlier in the season. It will need to quickly regroup to get its campaign back on track.

The only silver lining for CFC is that it takes on the bottom-placed Odisha FC back-to-back on Sunday and Wednesday, which gives it a chance to find its core in the absence of its skipper.

“I think the last game's performance was bad. I don't want to run away from this because altogether we made a lot of mistakes. I think after this game, everybody in my team has to go and think about it,” said coach Csaba Laszlo.

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“We have to change, we have to analyze the mistakes and, we have to go back to where we were before,” he added.

Odisha, on the other hand, enters the game on the back of its first win of the season over Kerala Blasters FC (4-2).

The team though has been defensively weak conceding 16 goals and, it is something that it would want to focus on against a Chennaiyin FC side that creates a lot of chances, even if it doesn’t covert it.

“It is important to the degree that we needed to get those three points to give the players the belief and the confidence to continue the roll around,” said Odisha FC manager Stuart Baxter on what the win over KBFC meant.

Squads:

Chennaiyin FC: Karanjit Singh, Vishal Kaith, Revanth BY, Samik Mitra, Eli Sabia, Jerry Lalrinzuala, Enes Sipovic, Lalchhuanmawia Fanai, Reagan Singh, Deepak Tangri, Aqib Nawab, Remi Aimol, Ganesan Balaji, Anirudh Thapa, Lallianzuala Chhangte, Rafael Crivellaro, Memo Moura, Fatkhullo Fatkhuloev, Edwin Vanspaul, Thoi Singh, Dhanpal Ganesh, Germanpreet Singh, Abhijit Sarkar, Sinivasan Pandiyan, Aman Chetri, Esmael Goncalves, Jakub Sylvestr, Rahim Ali. Odisha FC: Kamaljit Singh, Ravi Kumar, Arshdeep Singh, Ankit Bhuyan, Steven Taylor, Jacob Tratt, Shubham Sarangi, Gaurav Bora, Hendry Antonay, Kamalpreet Singh, George D'Souza, Mohammad Dhot, Saurabh Meher, Cole Alexander, Nandhakumar Sekar, Paul Ramfangzauva, Samuel Lalmuanpuia, Vinit Rai, Thoiba Singh, Isak Vanlalruatfela, Jerry Mawihmingthana, Boaringdao Bodo, Lahrezuala Sailung, Marcelo Pereira, Manuel Onwu, Daniel Lalhlimpuia, Diego Mauricio, Laishram Singh.