ISL 2017: Avram Grant's influence and FC Goa's travel blues in NEUFC vs FC Goa

SOMETIMES analysis is easier to process and decipher information when it’s broken down in two’s. So in a nutshell, two brilliant individual moments by Marcinho off his left foot, two defensive errors and a double clearance on the goal line with a shot hitting the post when it seemed easier to go in. These moments more or less summed up FC Goa’s night in Guhawati.

I don’t want to dwell too much in to the nature of the defeat; it was on the back of a game played in mid week. If I could touch on a simple statistic that stands for me is FC Goa has lost all 3 games when they have gone into Half Time either with honours even or a goal down and have conceded 2 in each of the three defeats. It seems imperative that Goa has to get out of the gates early and put pressure on the opposition by scoring early goals if not than rival teams look to slow the pace and break them down on the counter.

It’s too early to ascertain Avram Grant’s influence on the North East United team but it seemed very evident from kick off, he had them on some sort of time limit when on the ball. It meant the ball was moved at a quicker pace with more touches from multiple players and switched flanks if play paused on the other. It meant that NE attacking players found themselves in more 1 on 1 situation against the Goa defense which ultimately paid for them.

Lobera sensibly did the right thing with the tight schedule by rotating his playing squad. The defence bar Seriton was rested, Edu making way for Pronay and Arana swapping positions with Mandar. After trading early crosses in the box where both teams came close, Goa conceded its first goal which looked like a carbon copy of the goal conceded against ATK when Juste misjudged the cross but Marcelino still had a delightful finish while bringing the ball down with one touch and scoring albeit a fortunate deflection off Jahouh’s legs. Goa had their share of chances as did NEU but at times it just gave the impression they missed a bit of Edu’s finesse and ability to move the ball upfront quickly exerting that extra pressure on Lanza’ shoulder who to his credit did manage to put in some quality crosses from the left in the final quarter of the game.

Pranoy despite having done well to provide the assist on the equaliser unfortunately for me is offensively limited compared to Edu. The 2^nd half adjustment by Avram was apparent when he had Borges look to aggressively press Pronoy as soon as he was on the ball. His heavy touch nearly cost Goa in the 46^th minute when the ball was nicked off him but the team wasn’t punished in that instance. But then again in the 52^nd minute, strikingly similar loss of possession and this time Marcelino played the ball straighter for Seminlen to go clear on goal. On both those occasions, the pattern was clear to pressure Pronoy when in possession and Marcelino looking to hit the through ball in Seminlen’s path who looked to run off Mandar’ shoulder and again he was too quick for Mandar. I am a bit baffled as to why Mandar didn’t play narrower in terms of positioning so as to force Seminlen out more on the right. Mandar is much more suited to play as an attacking wingback in 3-5-2 formation or out and out winger where he played all his previous games. In any case, I don’t see him playing as left back once Narayan returns.

A positive from the game would be that of Manvir and the different option he offers Lobera as a traditional target man. He provided a very good outlet for Lanza to supply crosses to and had on goal efforts more than once. It’s unfortunate that his shot came off the post but you can gauge his value on set pieces because he drags two defenders on him creating more space for others to attack the ball.

A bit of defensive solidity will be restored once Bruno returns to the starting line up with the more natural left back Narayan. Each game is supposed to tell us more about this team. The obvious question now is whether FC Goa can go all the way and win it. There have been repetitive questions posed to Lobera on his team’s defensive shortcomings at every press conference which I can imagine he has grown tired of. Goa is yet to maintain a clean slate and although goals win matches, no team has won the big prize without being complete in both aspects i.e. Offensive and Defensive. There is the concern if they don’t score early and put pressure on the opposition then subsequent defensive errors will cost them.