Bagan on Punjab mission amid injury crisis
The bunky road arrived, when all seemed to be going smoothly, especially when we considered our championship goals and the unbeaten run, the wind knocked the sails out of our Mariners. Now it will be the test of character, how the team bounces back from this slump, coupled with injuries. After all it's December, and we've all been used to it even in the last year, and eventually we came back out of it as well.
Still the alarm bells will be ringing, just like the church bells in Christmas after the defeat against FC Goa, and even though it's not the end of the world, a few questions needs to be asked which I'll elaborate in the Mohun Bagan Situation part.
However the focus now is on Punjab FC, who surprised many ISL enthusiasts with their playstyle, mentality and vision. Despite being a club who just got promoted last year, and had lost their key players at the start of the season as well, they are not only holding their own this season, but also are cementing their place gradually as a top-6 finish contender, and who knows, they might even knock the doors of the big boys - Bengaluru FC and Mohun Bagan if they beat the latter on Boxing Day. Obviously they're also having injury concerns, their best defender Novoselec is out and Filip Mrzljak is doubtful, however they have a defined playstyle, players who responded to the coaching methods of Panagiotis very well and are physically imposing.
I had mentioned two of their players to watch before, namely Pulga Vidal and Mrzljak, I'd focus on their Indians here.
Punjab FC players to watch out for :-
Ricky Shabong - I've been waiting for the definite breakout season for this player as he's been in the news for a long time, from when he was in Rajasthan United. When Mohun Bagan snapped him up, mainly for the development team, I had my hopes up that he'd be the "next Apuia", incidentally we have the OG Apuia in our ranks, however this particular player couldn't reach that heights with the Mariners. However with a few stellar performances from the last season with the Punjab outfit, he'd proved to be a key player for them and if he continues that form till the end of the season, we might be talking about a national team level player.
His main quality is duel-winning, he'll win everything coming his way, more because he takes those calculated risk in midfield. He's an average progressor, but surprisingly fast in releasing the ball for his kind of midfielder, if I have to compare, I'd compare him to Frenkie De Jong, with just a faster brain. However he has those odd bad games as well. Hopefully the Mohun Bagan game will be one of them.
Tekcham Abhishek Singh - Another very underrated player, he's the perfect utility player for a brilliant side who has a coach which overperforms their players. A left back by trade, he can invert and make that darting run on the wings, yup he's fast enough for that. His best quality however is scanning, and it's very difficult to play those one touch-football and one-twos on his side which Manvir generally does. He has a good heading qualities as well, and at 19, he has his whole career before him to develop. A true utility player.
Tactical analysis:-
This graph depicts the average field tilt of the ISL teams - what is field tilt? Field tilt is a pretty simple metric, it is simply the ratio of each team’s final third touches compared to the total final third touches. It depicts who had the bigger share of the ball in opposition's final third.
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| Picture Courtesy - Jio Cinema |
Lets Look at how they hold shape defensively; they employ two blocks of four, however sometimes the midfield block consists of three players as well. They don’t employ man marking, still they can aggressively press. However their zonal marking tactic with aggressive pressing sometimes leave spaces in behind. Thus we will need to penetrate their block by not only being creative – well it’s the essential requirement to break defensive lines, but also agility and movement. We will need to make smart blindside runs and movements and then ping a pass forward.
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| Picture Courtesy - Jio Cinema |
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| Picture Courtesy - Jio cinema |
These two images reveal their build up patterns. As the game is an away game, I have snapped their last home game as opposed to their last ISL game against Eastbengal. Their buildup contains these two elements – soaking press and playing a killer ball. And unlike many teams, the defensive midfielder does not do the soaking – they pass, and pass it quickly. The fun in this is that if they don’t pass quickly enough, they lose balls in dangerous areas as the wingbacks and ball playing defenders invite aggressive pressing from the opponents. But after they pass, they find themselves in acres of land, which helps them find the killer ball as soon as they enter the opposition final third – reflected by that Field Tilt graph I had mentioned above.
Should we not press them then? No, we should press, but we have to make sure not to get out of position doing that – and I will be pointing at Subhashis bose there. He has that tendency to leave his line, he should not do that. Not only because of the tactical reason I had mentioned, but also because he will be up against pulga vidal as his opposite number, and I would hope the mariners would not want to give him his belated Christmas gift in boxing day that is – acres of space to operate on the flanks.
Mohun Bagan Situation:-
When the road seemed smooth and our season was gaining pace, the bump appeared, as I've mentioned before, however a good navigator always finds a way out of it. However just like last december, even the way out seems to be a far way out because of a few injury concerns. However there are some surface level questions to address
First is my hot take. In the past I had accused Dimitri Petratos of being finished. I was wrong, He isn't finished. I watched the FC Goa game with a different lens than others, and I had noticed a tweak in his game which no one did, and that's why I find the abuses he received after his game on the X-app unfounded (not only because he's a legend, but he genuinely was not bad). People saw his lost long balls, I saw him making the right decisions in transition, which simply didn't come off because of the ground dimensions, those would've been passes in a bigger ground, and those would have been chances created as well. Thankfully we won't play again in any of the smaller grounds so I'd hope that we rely more on those cross-field balls to the wingers from here on. I am sure Sahal can do them too.
Question marks should be raised on the medical team as well, so many recurring injuries are NOT normal. And even apart from that, the players don't seem that fit enough. The physicality is fine, however if we lose players through injuries every second game, then the blame should go to not only the players - but their individual trainers as well.
Third question - Sahal Abdul Samad. What's his position? One day he's playing left wing, the other day he's playing in the attacking midfield and then he's apparently being experimented in the pivot. Obviously it's good being versatile and all, however he needs to find a certain position. And if he finds the flow in a certain position, he will be fine.
Lineups:-
Punjab FC - Ravi Kumar; Augustine-Meitei-Melroy-Abhishek; Shabong-Suljic-Prabhu; Vidal-Majcen-Sudeesh.
Mohun Bagan - Kaith; Rai-Aldred-Alberto-Subhashis; Apuia-Tangri Manvir-Sahal-Liston; Jamie.
Kick Off: 07:30 PM IST
Venue: Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, New Delhi
Live Stream: Sports 18 network , Star Sports 3(TV) VH1 India (TV) DD Bangla (TV) Colours Bangla (TV) Jio Cinema (India OTT Stream) One Football (International OTT Stream)
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