Jamshedpur FC’s Greg Stewart stole the headlines with his blistering strike in their last match against Kerala Blasters. Not only in India but football aficionados all around the world were left in awe of the curling free-kick from more than 35 yards away from the goal.
The Scotsman, who has so far scored five goals in the tournament, will now look to continue his good form when they take on Chennaiyin FC in Sunday’s late game in the Indian Super League.
The team from South India are placed sixth with 11 points at the halfway stage and are quite low on morale after two consecutive losses against Kerala Blasters and Bengaluru FC respectively where they conceded as many as seven goals.
The loss against Bengaluru was shocking to say the least since they started off well but lost the plot as the game progressed with their goalkeeper Vishal Kaith making a couple of blunders that helped Bengaluru earn their second win of the tournament.
Naturally, it was a hard pill to swallow for coach Bozidar Bandovic and now he has a task at hand to get his players ready for the Jamshedpur game in a short period of time.
“It’s difficult to play every 3-4 days but we have to recover and be ready because Jamshedpur are a strong team. They play direct football with high pressing. They are also good at set-pieces and some players are also there whom we have to take care of individually,” said Bandovic during a virtual press conference on Saturday.
Chennaiyin, meanwhile, will have to do with four foreigners since Ariel Borysiuk will be unavailable because of an injury that he picked up during the match against Bengaluru.
As of Owen Coyle-coached Jamshedpur, they have done reasonably well so far and are placed fourth on the league table with 13 points from eight matches. Although they started off well, two consecutive draws have pegged them back. The match against Chennaiyin, however, gives them a good chance to go back to their winning ways but Coyle, who had earlier coach Chennaiyin, believes it will quite a tough encounter.
“I know they have high quality players which make them a very good team. Even in their game against Bengaluru, they were very unfortunate as they could have easily been 3 or 4 goals in the lead after just 15-20 minutes. So, we certainly know how dangerous our opponents are,” Coyle said during a pre-match press conference on Saturday.
Keeping the opponents aside, if Jamshedpur do win this game, they will be back on second spot and that will surely give the players the extra impetus to give their all on the field.
