ISL: Mumbai City FC rally to thrash Chennaiyin FC 6-2

CHENNAI: Mumbai City FC came back from two goals down against Chennaiyin FC on a rain-soaked Saturday evening here to hand the hosts a 6-2 humiliation. With the win, Mumbai went to the second spot of the ISL table with 12 points from six games while Chennaiyin are sixth with seven from five.
CFC started off well and looked to press Mumbai high up the pitch. It worked well for a while as they got the two early goals, courtesy Petar Sliskovic and Abdenasser El Khayati Nasser.But CFC didn’t have the wherewithal to play such a high-intensity game against a team of the quality of Mumbai for too long.
A minute after conceding the second goal, Mumbai hit back following a cross from the right. The ball was headed down for Jorge Pereyra Diaz and the forward was smart enough to evade the off-side trap to reduce the margin. It was around this time that the problems in the CFC defence started to come out into the open.
Defenders Vafa and Narayan Das were missing due to suspension and injury and coach Thomas Brdaric’s decision to play midfielder Duker at the heart of the defence backfired. The intricate movements of the Mumbai City forwards were too much for CFC’s makeshift defence to handle. Add to that a silly foul that custodian Debjit Majumdar committed on Lalengmawia in the injury-time of the first-half that gifted Mumbai City a penalty. Greg Stewart came forward to convert it and make things 2-2 at half-time.
“The team made too many errors that hurt us. We have to address these mistakes going forward,” Brdaric said.
Mumbai, on the other hand, have great bench strength and they brought in Vipin Rai at the beginning of the second half that paid immediate dividends. Winger Bipin Singh set up on top of the box with a beautiful cut-back and Vipin found the space to take a right-footer that gave Mumbai the lead.
It was one-way traffic thereon and another substitute D Vignesh’s left-footer found its way through the defence into the net midway through the second half. CFC had completely run out of gas by then and Bipin made life miserable for the hosts with his quick feet down the left.
Alberto Noguera made the most of the tiring CFC defence with the fifth goal in the 65th minute, but Mumbai seemed relentless. They kept making life difficult for Brdaric’s boys and Bipin’s hard work was rewarded when he weaved his way down the left and scored the sixth in added-on time.
Mumbai coach Des Buckingham, though, felt that the team didn’t play too well in the first half. “I was disappointed at the end of the first 45 minutes. But the players responded well and I am happy that we are going home with full points from a difficult venue,” Buckingham said.