Barasat: East Bengal will face Army XI in their third CFL encounter tomorrow at the Barasat Stadium. East Bengal who are on 6 points from 2 matches are placed third in the league table and will look for a win to go ahead of arch-rivals Mohun Bagan in the points table.
East Bengal trained at the Barasat Stadium today for quite a while as their training session was washed out due to heavy rain. Winger Dika who was nursing a calf-muscle injury which forced him to sit out in the last match against Peerless SC is ready make a comeback into the squad and he may replace Dong in the starting XI who looked out of sources in the last two matches.
Defender Gurwinder Singh too will be rested in this match as he is too coming out from an injury Gurwinder will make way for British defender Calum Angus who was dropped in the last match. Adelaja and Jiten Murmu will lead the attack while Mehtab and Rafique will lead the midfield.
Right back Samad Ali Mallick faced an hairline injury scare today during training while kicking the ball but it was no contact injury. From distance it seemed to be an twist of an ankle but later it was not of that. Samad will behaving an X-ray today. Morgan said, “Samad’s will have an X-ray and then I will take further call on him speaking to the physio and medical. As of now, its irrelevant to say anything.”
On the other hand, Army XI is always considered to be giant-killers and were runners-up last season in the CFL. They have a good bunch of players who are playing together for almost 4 years now and have a good bonding amongst themselves. Army will depend Jain.P and Arjun Tudu in the attack while Bipin T.D. will lead the defense. They have experience lads in the midfield comprising the likes of Rojen Meetei and Santu Subba.
Last year in the CFL, East Bengal were on the verge of losing the match as they were trailing 2-0 in the first half but a brilliance from Dong helped them win 3-2. On Army XI, Trevor Morgan said, “They are a good side with experienced customers who have been playing together for a long time and it will be a good match.”
On resting Gurwinder Singh, Trevor said, “He has just come out of a serious injury so I will play him in selective matches as we are playing frequent matches.” Regarding Dong, Trevor said, “I keep motivating him but he needs to understand his position and what is good for the team. If you talk about missing the penalty, I would say world-class strikers misses penalties and its nothing of an issue.”