James, Ferrando satisfied to have taken a point

Jamshedpur FC threw away a two-goal advantage in the second half to end up with a 2-2 draw against Kerala Blasters at home in the Indian Super League (ISL) 2018.

Kerala Blasters FC coach David James speaking at the post-match press conference.

Kerala Blasters produced an incredible second half performance to come back from two goals down and salvage a point against Jamshedpur FC at the JRD Tata Sports Complex in Jamshedpur on Monday. Tim Cahill and Michael Soosairaj put the hosts in front in the first period before Slavisla Stojanovic and CK Vineeth brought Kerala back level.

Match Report

At the post-match press conference,  David James  shared his thoughts on the performance of substitute Seiminlen Doungel, who lead the fightback for Kerala. “We made a couple of changes in the first half but it didn’t work. After the second goal I feared that the result for us might have been bad. We needed to make a change. I did tell Doungel that he had to score a goal.  He gave two assists and, in my book, two assists are the same as one goal. He did very well. It was a tough decision not to play him. But we felt we needed to make a slight change,” James said.

The Englishman admitted that he was pleased with the draw, given the quality of the opposition. “We tried to change the way we play but it didn’t work. Cahill scored against me with a header a few years ago so I’m not surprised to see him score today. But you know, in the second half we changed our approach and our mindset was very different. We stopped Jamshedpur from getting three points today, so I am quite happy with the draw.”

 

From Jamshedpur’s end coach Cesar Ferrando  was disappointed with his team’s second half performance that saw it fail to hold on to a two-goal advantage. “We made two mistakes again, a third one with the penalty. In the first half we played well. Tim gave us a great start with a good header. In the second half we lost the ball a lot and we didn’t keep the ball enough generally. Because of that the team suffered a lot. We could have scored more goals in the first half because of the way we played,“ he said.

The 59-year-old also pointed out how difficult it is to pick up a victory with so many strong teams in the league before admitting he was pleased to come away with a draw in the end. “It is very difficult in this league to win matches, because there are many strong teams. Kerala Blasters is a strong team and our next match will be against a strong team. Our aim is always to win games and we will look to do that against FC Goa. We are at least getting points and that is a good thing.”