Kolkata: The much old groupies’ controversy came in limelight during today’s practice session on East Bengal ground. Thus question has been raised that is East Bengal really a ‘happy family’.
During today’s practice session defender Gurwinder Singh tackled Abinash Ruidas very hard. When the players were taking rest senior defender Arnab Mondal came to Ruidas and said, “Didn’t you see how hard Gurwinder was tackling? Couldn’t you break his leg by kick?”
Gurwinder standing a little apart listened to this and charged Arnab, “Come and break my leg if you have the guts. I am not afraid of you.” Blow of words continued as Arnab further replied, “Your behavior is very obscene. You cannot talk properly. You don’t talk to me”.
Amidst this situation senior Mehtab Hossain and Lalrindika Ralte cameforward to stop this duo. Mehtab shouted, “You can’t do like this. We are a family.” This stopped the controversy for that time. However, day before the team’s match this scene will not boost the team members at all.
East Bengal will play against Tollygunge Agragami tomorrow. Coach Trevor James Morgan is a little worried about the opponents as the team is under the coaching of Ranjan Chowdhury. He was the assistant coach of East Bengal under coach Morgan.
Today Morgan said, “Tomorrow we will play against such a team which is under the coaching of a man who knows our team very well. He also knows all positives and negatives of me too. He also knows the loopholes of our team too. For that reason I think this match is going to be the toughest among all the matches we have played prior to this”.
Today East Bengal practiced with all probable set ups. However, coach Morgan was not happy with team’s play in the last match, specially the form of the defenders. He said, “How the defenders conceived goals is not accountable. Our strikers and mid-fielders are playing well. If defenders fail in this way we cannot produce good match”.
He also added, “We have to be more serious and sincere. We have to
shorten the margin of error. “ There may be only one change in the team on the match of tomorrow as Mehtab will return in this match.
Tollygunge Agragami is not in a good position in the league table. They have seven points in four matches. They also lost their last match and tending for relegation. Coach Ranjan Chowdhury expressed his worry in this way, “There is a problem with small teams that they useto cheer up high winning a match. In a similar way they go down losing a match. This is time to boost up the team. The comment Morgan made on me that is an inspiration to me and will boost me up”.
Probable team: Luis Barreto, Samad Ali Mallick, Arnab Mondal, Calum Angus, Narayan Das, Mohammed Rafique, Lalrindika Ralte, Mehtab Hossain, Abinash Ruidas, Jiten Murmu, Adelaja