Barasat : East Bengal succumbed to their first defeat in I League in front of their new international recruit Bernard Mendy . The Frenchman was at the stands to witness his teammates losing 0-1 to Bengaluru at the Barasat Stadium. The only goal of the match was scored in the 60th minute by Blues captain Sunil Chhetri.
East Bengal coach Biswajit Bhattacharya made three changes to the side that won against DSK Shivajians. Samad Ali Mullick replaced Rahul Bheke while Narayan Das made his debut for Red and Gold .While for the visitors Amrinder Singh started under the goal for the first time.
Bengaluru FC’s best chance of the first half came in the 40th minute when Doungel handed Kim a cut back that the striker should have done more with than flash wide from just outside the box. Westwood and the Bengaluru bench had their arms up soon in the second half again when Chhetri, unchallenged, saw his shot saved by TP Rehenesh after being found at the end of Shankar Sampingiraj’s cross from the right.
But Chhetri didn’t have to wait long to makes amends, turning up at the right place and at the right time to tap in Rino Anto’s cross on the hour mark that sank Barasat into silence. With no choice but to chase the game, East Bengal threw numbers in attack only to be caught out on the counter by the Blues who used Len’s pace to good effect.
Bengaluru, in fact, could have got a second only three minutes later when Kim, after combining well with Chhetri and Len, saw his shot saved by Rehenesh from close.
Desperate for a goal to bring them back in the game, East Bengal pushed further but The Blues’ defence was too compact to let anything through. John Johnson and Curtis Osano gave Ranti Martins no joy while Lalchhuanmawia put in a brilliant shift in shutting out the pace of Do Dong down the left. Anything that did get past them was comfortably dealt with by Amrinder who pulled off a good save off a Dong freekick late in the second half and it was his composed show that saw him walk away with the man-of-the-match gong.
Bengaluru now have 12 points from five games and play their next three games at home, hosting Sporting Clube de Goa (Feb.6), DSK Shivajians (Feb.10) and Mohun Bagan (Feb. 13).
Bengaluru won their first away match against the Red and Gold and took a healthy four points lead. East Bengal will be playing Aizawl FC on 5th February while Bengaluru are scheduled to play Sporting Clube de Goa in the next match .
A dejected looking East Bengal coach expressed his disappointment after the match ,“We condeded the goal from a silly mistake.We dominated the entire match but we couldn’t convert the chances to goal.”
The gaffer further added “I have faced similar situation in my life. Win and loss is a part of the game. We will definitely bounce back”.
Bengaluru coach Ashley Westwood was seen using foul language towards the East Bengal reserve bench. “He used slangs towards our support staffs and reserved players” the Red and Gold coach added.
Bengaluru coach Westwood praised his players for their effort ,” I have heard that our midfielders are not up the mark. We played a wonderful game today. East Bengal is always a tough opponent”.
Meanwhile East Bengal captain Arnab Mondal and Bengaluru captain Sunil Chhetri was engaged in a altercation after the match.
Newly recruit Bernard Mendy will start practice from Monday. East Bengal’s match against Lajong FC have been rescheduled to 10th January from 9th January.