Morgan: Jackichand has been a fantastic discovery for Indian football

The coach of the Goan side admitted that winning three points against the north eastern side has afforded them some ‘breathing space’…

Dempo SC are sixth on the I-League standings with 16 points from their 14 games so far after they downed Royal Wahingdoh 3-2 in a thrilling game on Wednesday evening in Goa.

Coach Trevor Morgan stated that Wahingdoh’s equalizer just before the end of the first half saw him having to alter his team talk at half-time.

“I think, in all honestly, we deserved it (the win). I thought, in the first half we were excellent. We just conceded that goal right on 45 minutes and it changed our half-time team talk. I just said to the players to carry on doing what they did in the first half and they did that in the second half. I think we showed a lot of character because it's not easy when you go 2-1 up with five minutes to go and the other team equalises.

“We kept probing and kept trying to look for the ball that might give us the winner and in the end I think we got what we deserved. Royal Wahingdoh have had a fantastic season so far. The three points today has given us a bit of breathing space,” he said.

Morgan mentioned that having taken over Dempo SC for close to two months now, the team is finally beginning to gel as a unit though there is still a lot to improve upon.

“I think we played well against Pune [FC] as well. We were the better side against Pune. It was just unfortunate about the result (2-1 loss). It takes time to adapt to new things. I've been here about six-to-seven weeks and normally that would be a pre-season period. The pre-season period would be where you do all your work on how you want to play. So when you come into the season you've got that behind you. The players are really starting to pick-up what their roles are and its bearing fruition.

“We know that we're near to what we can be. There's still a long way from the improvement that we can make. I think if we keep conceding cheap goals - of all the goals we've conceded since I've been around, one of them I would hold my hands up and say 'can't do anything about it'. The others have come from errors and people making wrong decisions. They are all negatives we can talk about in the dressing room.

“The positives are the top performance. In the last two games, we've played some really good football. We've opened teams up and Tolgay [Ozbey] is now getting back to coming to full fitness - he's not at the moment. He's played sort of 20 minutes [in the last game] and given half an hour today). So we'll just take our time with him because he's important to us,” he explained.

The 58-year-old praised Royal Wahingdoh for their brand of football and mentioned that Jackichand Singh’s shining in the I-League is a boon for Indian football at large.

“They are very difficult to play against. Jackichand [Singh] has been a fantastic discovery to Indian football. He looks a good player, looks dangerous when he's got the ball. They play in a certain system that suits the players they've got. Every game that I've seen them playing really, they've always been in the game. They never give the game up, they equalise late, they get late winners and they nearly did it again tonight.

“It's just the way they play. Sometimes they are 3-5-2 and then they go in 3-4-3. When you got players who got movement, they are hard to mark and hard to play against them. There is some quality in their team as well,” Morgan pointed.

Mandar Rao Desai has struggled for minutes lately with only five starts for him in the I-League this season. Morgan explained that the system employed by him doesn’t need a winger as such and hence, Desai has to adapt to other roles.

“The man is really an out and out winger and in the system we play in, we don't really play with any wide man as such. So he's got to start to adapt to the role that we want him to play.

“We took the two front men off. I think Sushil [Singh] did really well for us today. He got the goal that was great for him. I think Holi (Holicharan Narzary)'s work rate was absolutely fantastic. He doesn't get the goals that his work rate deserves. You've got to play him because you know how hard he works for the team. They've both put a tremendous shift in and then we were able to put Tolgay [Ozbey] in. Mandar causes different problems than Holi does, but we have got try to play Mandar to fit in to our system,” he expounded.

Dempo SC next face East Bengal on Saturday at the Salt Lake Stadium which shall see Morgan return back to his old stomping ground.

Top and Flop: East Bengal 1-0 Salgaocar FC

East Bengal returned to winning ways after a blip as Salgaocar continued to drop points...

Welcome to Goal 's new I-League feature: Top and Flop . For every game, a candidate will be put forward, as chosen by Goal , who deserves recognition for achieving something special. It won't necessarily be the best player in the league - but whoever we nominate will have done something amazing. In the same vein, we will also name a player whose performance wasn’t up to the mark on the given day and eventually came to hurt his side.

TOP: RANTI MARTINS

It was a perfect poacher's strike from the East Bengal forward that gave his side the lead. He showed great presence of mind to get in front of both Augustin Fernandes and Subrata Paul as he thumped in a header following a Robert Lalthamuana cross from the left. In an otherwise drab match, that moment of brilliance was the difference between the two teams.

FLOP: DARRYL DUFFY

The Scotsman seems to not be 100 per cent fit as he looked sluggish and his only contribution was scuffing a shot wide. It was only after Sanju Pradhan's introduction that the Greens' managed to create a couple of chances.

Player	Goals	Apps
R. MARTINSStrikerEast Bengal	15	14
C. GLENNStrikerShillong Lajong	9	13
S. NORDÉStrikerMohun Bagan	7	12
JOSIMARStrikerMumbai	6	14
T. HAOKIPStrikerPune	6	13