Arnab Mondal to be available from the Mumbai FC game
Barasat: Popular Bollywood movie songs like “Suraj Hua Madhyam”, “Kuch Kuch Hota Hain”, “Hamma Hamma” with the blend of Caribbean pop music have suddenly brought a fresh and free air at the East Bengal dressing room and Red and Gold forward Willis Plaza has been the innovator of this “feel good” atmosphere as the players too are enjoying the loud music after the training for the relaxation. If the new trend has been an indication, then another news of relief is awaiting around the corner, as the “Mr.Dependable” of East Bengal defense Arnab Mondal will be match fit ahead of the Kolkata Derby against Mohun Bagan and will be available to play from the Mumbai FC game on 1st February at the Barasat Stadium.
Today, the reserve team of East Bengal played a practice game against their U18 I-League team and Arnab played the entire game with full fitness and was seen going for some accurate sliding tackles after recovering from the surgery. The coach Trevor Morgan too was happy with his progress and said, “Yes, Arnab will be available from the next week after the Minerva match. He is getting ready.”
East Bengal to play against Minerva FC of Punjab on the 29th January and Morgan is determined to secure full points from the game. He said, “We are not taking them lightly at all. We are giving equal value to them as we had given to Bengaluru and Pune. They are an improved side now and we have to play really well to beat them.” The gaffer doesn’t want to give any importance to Mohun Bagan’s points loss against DSK, as he said, “We won’t win the league if the others drop points. We can only win the title if we can continue win our games from now on. And we are focusing on it.”
East Bengal’s Kyrgyz International Ildar Amirov is still a concern as he even stumbled a number of times against the U18 Boys at Barasat today. But Trevor said, “Well, Amirov is a part of our squad and that is all what I can say about him.” The Kyrgyz forward scored a goal today along with VP Suhair and Robert Lalthuamna as the East Bengal reserves won the game by 3-0. The U18 team impressed the gaffer with their performance and he said, “I am really glad to see the academy players. Ranjan has been doing a good job. We have already promoted Mehtab Singh in our senior squad and he has been really good. The supply line seems to be working fine at the moment.”
East Bengal will be off to Ludhiana on tomorrow morning to play their last away match of the first leg of the Hero I-League 2017.