A confident Kerala Blasters FC (KBFC) will be chasing its first home win when it meets struggling Delhi Dynamos at the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium on Saturday.
A Pranjal Bhumij's special in the dying minutes robbed Blasters of a certain win in the last home match against Mumbai City FC. Despite conceding the unexpected draw, Blasters still enjoyed one of its better starts in this season.
In both the games, Blasters gave enough indications that the side has settled down as unit. Unlike in the previous season, Blasters has played positively this season with Nikola Krcmarevic, Courage Pekuson and Slavisa Stojanovic looking good in the midfield.
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Even in the absence of Anas Edathodika and Cyril Kali, the Blasters defence held its own against both ATK and Mumbai FC.
Young goalkeeper Dheeraj Singh looked assured under the bar. The probable return of Frenchman Cyril Kali from injury will bolster the Blasters defence further against Dynamos.
Blasters will be playing its first match after a break of two weeks and coach David James said he used the break to iron out the flaws and try new combinations with fringe players.
But it is unlikely that James will tinker too much with the combination against Dynamos.
The Kochi side obviously wants to garner maximum points in its home matches and Dynamos with a leaky defence will be hard pressed to stop the ambitions of Blasters.
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However, coach James was not willing to take Dynamos lightly and said the visitor will come down hard on his side.
Captain Sandesh Jinghan said the confidence of the team is high and the players are eager and hungry to do well this season.
A shaky defence has proved to be Dynamos' weakness at the start of this season as it conceded late goals in the last two matches.
Despite having two of the best Indian defenders in Pritam Kotal and Narayan Das, Dynamos failed to plug the spaces and appeared vulnerable to counterattacks.
Assistant coach Mridual Banerjee said it was a weakness which the team was desperately trying to avoid again.
"Our coach is working on it and we hope not to repeat it again against Kerala which is a very good side. It is early days in the season and the team is yet to settle down. But we are keen to avoid mistakes," he said.
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