ISL 2019-20: Coyle unhappy with 'Christmas gifts' presented by his side to FC Goa

Battling back from a 0-3 deficit at half-time, Chennaiyin FC nearly completed a spectacular comeback against table-toppers FC Goa, before falling just short in a goal-fest in Chennai in the Indian Super League.

The opening exchanges of the game were largely even, but Goa then took advantage of some careless mistakes from hosts Chennaiyin to score three goals to put themselves in the driving seat. In the 27th minute, Chennaiyin left-back Tondonba Singh played a horror back-pass straight to Goa striker Coro who immediately initiated an attack that saw the ball finding Hugo Boumous before being squared to Ahmed Jahouh who finished beautifully past Vishal Kaith to score his first-ever ISL goal.

Chennaiyin captain Lucian Goian was at fault for the other three Goa goals; in the 42nd minute, he failed to trap a simple pass from Germanpreet Singh and inadvertently provided the perfect assist for Brandon Fernandes who took a smart first-time finish with just Kaith to beat. In added time of the first half, he withdrew at the last minute from making an interception on a cross into the box from Jackichand Singh which left Boumous with an easy tap-in in front of goal.

Chennaiyin rallied back in the second half and within 15 minutes had dragged the score back to 2-3, but another error from Goian, this time failing to push up for the offside trap, saw Coro get the ball and finish with aplomb for Goa’s fourth. Rafael Crivellaro scored a spectacular goal in added time in the end, but there wasn’t enough time for another.

Manager Owen Coyle was proud of the fightback shown by his charges, but was left to rue the early goals he felt were ‘gifted’ to Goa.

“We gifted the first three goals, they were individual mistakes. Goa are a fantastic team, they have very good attacking players. One thing they don’t need is gifts. We gave them Christmas gifts today. The first three goals were gifts. That apart I think it was quite an even game against the best team in the league at the moment.”

Once again the game saw its fair share of contentious moments from the officiating crew and Coyle was left fuming at the fact that each of his side’s games has had key moments decided by the referees. There were three penalty calls today which Chennaiyin felt they should have got – in the 3rd minute Jahouh got away with a push on Andre Schembri, in the 37th minute Mourtada Fall took away the legs of Goian in the box, but once again nothing was given, and in the 84th minute Mandar Rao Desai’s slight push on Crivellaro was also not deemed worthy of a penalty and instead the Brazilian was shown a yellow for attempted simulation.

“What was very evident was we could have got two clear penalties in the first half. At 0-0 with Andre (Schembri) on the ball, it was a clear penalty. And then at 1-0 Lucian (Goian) was tripped from behind. We made mistakes but we have to say this, the league is getting better with good foreign and Indian players. But we must get those major decisions right”, said Coyle.

“And this is happening in every game. It happened against Jamshedpur when the boy (Farukh Chaudhary) punched it into the net. We suffered against Kerala (Blasters) although we won that game. You can’t have every game with big decisions going against you. Some of the stuff was bizarre,” added the Irishman.

He also questioned the decision to issue just a yellow to Goa keeper Mohammad Nawaz who fouled Nerijus Valskis outside the box in the 79th minute and the lack of punishment for substitute Edu Bedia who kicked out at Crivellaro in the closing stages after he had gone down.

Chennaiyin played without their main centre-back Eli Sabia today who was suspended after picking up a red card in the previous game and Coyle admitted that he was missed today, but felt despite those errors his team did not deserve to lose the game.

“Eli (Sabia) was an absolute miss. He is one of the top defenders in the league. He brings a calmness and leadership at the back. That being said I still don’t think we deserved to lose the game. We went toe-to-toe with the leaders and not many teams have been able to do that this season against Goa. My players showed a lot of heart to get back into this game the way they did.”

Chennaiyin next travel away to Bhubaneshwar to play Odisha FC on January 6th.