ISL 7: Happy with fighting spirit shown by NorthEast United, says coach Gerard Nus
Dec 09, 2020
Panaji (Goa) [India], December 9 : After playing out a 2-2 draw against Bengaluru FC in the ongoing Indian Super League (ISL), NorthEast United coach Gerard Nus said that he was happy with the fighting spirit shown by his team.
Gerard Nus' men took an early lead through a fortuitous strike from Luis Machado (4') but Bengaluru hit back through Juanan (13') and substitute Udanta Singh (70'). Just as the Blues looked set for a win, Machado (78') struck again to ensure his team got a share of the points.
"I'm happy with the fighting spirit, I'm happy with a lot of things that we have done. We have played five games since the league started that means a massive effort from the players. Last game was three days ago. Also, we tried to rotate players as much as possible because they deserve it. Because they are our good players and because we want to prevent injuries," said Nus during the post-match press conference.
"We tried to go for the three points in every single game. We know that Bengaluru are a team which creates a lot of chances but mostly through set-pieces. It's really sad to see that they punished us. We need to learn from this. We wanted three points but we got one. We see it as a positive," he added.
Bengaluru had a number of chances to take the lead in the first half and their coach Carles Cuadrat would have been rather displeased that they did not do so. Ashique Kuruniyan, in the 19th minute, fired wide after a terrific run. Seven minutes later, Harmanjot Khabra found himself inside the box with an open sight on goal but his shot went wide as well.
NEUFC went close towards the end of the first half as Gurpreet had to stretch to keep a Machado freekick out. But it was Bengaluru who dominated the half and their 62 per cent possession in that period was a testament to that.
"We wanted to get the full three points, but at the end of the day you see how the game started, we were quite quick in scoring, everyone changed and we knew it would be tough against Bengaluru, I take it as a positive that we managed to get one point, now we are looking forward to our next game," said Nus.
