Kolkata: Trevor Morgan’s East Bengal faced a huge blow just before the Shillong Lajong game as their Trinidad and Tobago forward Willis Plaza is all set to miss the tie as he failed to the fitness test today. Their star Haitian playmaker Wedson Anselme has already been ruled out of the clash after being diagnosed with a groin injury and Plaza’s injury has just just been doubled their concerns.
The doctors gave a fit certificate to Plaza on Monday but today during a practice session at the Central Park, Plaza failed to pass the fitness test in front of Physio Barun Ghosh. Plaza was not looking much comfortable as he was limping on the ground.
After practice, East Bengal coach Trevor Morgan stated, ”We are not keeping Plaza in our 20 men squad. He is still felling pain in his groin while training in the practice session and we have decided not to pick him for our next game.”
Without Wedson and Plaza East Bengal have a tough task ahead against Lajong as the Morgan brigade were held by them in the home game at Siliguri few days back. On being asked how big a blow is this for his side, the East Bengal gaffer said, ”It is a long league and every team have to deal with their injuries. We have to look forward leaving behind these kind of things. We had played our first match against Aizawl with just one foreigner most of the time. Plaza came in the later part of the game as he had some jetlag. So we have to deal with it and look forward for the next game.”
Lalrindika Ralte has made his return to the twenty men squad. He missed the last game due to card problem. Abhinash Ruidas has also made it to the squad in place of Mehtab Singh, but veteran defender Arnab Mondal failed to make a place in the side for consecutive two matches. Except them Cavin Lobo has made his return to the squad after 11 months in place of injured Wedson after recovering from his injury.
East Bengal is at the top of the I-League. Morgan was asked about what would be the needed points to seal the league.” If we win our next four games on a trot and the other teams don’t do well there is a fair chance for us to win the league. There is another chance that the league might be decided later. You cannot say anything about the future,” he added.
In Trevor Morgan’s era East Bengal’s track record against Shillong Lajong is not quite good. The East Bengal gaffer said,” In my last period we didn’t play well against Bengaluru FC in our last two games but this year you saw our result against BFC. You cannot say what will happen in future.”
On the other hand East Bengal top official Debabrata Sarkar (Nitu) gave a warning to the Haitian forward Wedson Anselme as he was seen giving an interview to a media house regarding I-league.”We have warned Wedson that in future he must not give any interview to the media. We have a code of conduct for the I-League that only the coach will talk to the media and everybody must follow that rule,” Debabrata added.