Chennaiyin missing Sereno, says Mumbai City's Goian

Mumbai City's former captain, Lucian Goian talked about the Islanders inconsistent run and Chennaiyin's poor start to the Indian Super League (2018) season.

Lucian Goian is into his third season with Mumbai City FC.

Mumbai City FC will take on Chennaiyin FC later tonight in a high octane clash here at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, with both the teams in desperate need of some momentum to thrust them closer to the top four.

READ | Champion Chennaiyin eyes its first win against Mumbai City

Mumbai City’s former captain, Lucian Goian caught up with Sportstar to talk about the Islanders inconsistent run and Chennaiyin’s poor start to the season.

While looking back at Mumbai’s progress, Goian expressed similar thoughts as Costa, where he called for better consistency from the team. “We need to be more consistent and we have to try win 2-3 games in a row that will take us higher up to the table in a more comfortable position. We won one game at home 2-0 and we lost the away game 5-0, so we have to be more consistent and we need to achieve this in the next two games,” said Goian.

The Saturday night’s clash will be the ninth meeting between the two teams. The host lead the head-to-head count with five wins, three ahead of Mumbai City. Chennaiyin will look to hit the top gear after having made the worst possible start to the season. It’s defence has looked shaky, conceding 10 goals this season and Mumbai would be keen to exploit.

When asked about his thoughts on Chennaiyin, Goian revealed, “We are preparing well for this game because we know it’s not going to be an easy game. Chennai is not having such a good period in their previous games, so we have to take advantage of that and we have to make sure we don’t give them too many chances. Talking is easy, but we have to show it on the ground.”

Goian also acknowledged his opposition’s struggles and admitted that the going has been tough with the absence of a few stars from last season. “Chennaiyin are the defending champions of ISL and it’s true that they have some good players from last season missing. One of them is [Henrique] Sereno, who was one of the best defenders in ISL. It is a big loss for the team as he was a very big player, he was a big motivation for the team and a leader as well. The team has lost a lot of strength in the few departments.”