After failing to secure a win in their first two Hero Indian Super League (ISL) 2017-18 fixtures, NorthEast United FC bounced back against Delhi Dynamos FC to pick up three points, and will enter Friday’s encounter against Bengaluru FC at the Indira Gandhi Athletic Stadium in Guwahati with renewed confidence. With everyone fit to play in the squad, the hosts will be looking to use their passionate home support to their advantage.

Speaking to the media at the pre-match press conference was NorthEast’s head coach, Joao De Deus. On being asked how he is preparing his team for Bengaluru’s potent attack, he said, “We know that they are strong; they have scored a lot of goals from set pieces. We know that (Erik) Paartalu has scored three goals from set pieces. They will probably try to make something new tomorrow. We have prepared our best for the set pieces. Let’s see what happens tomorrow. Of course, we can suffer because they are a strong team in set pieces, but we are going to try to avoid that. I think it will be a good match.”

Bengaluru will miss their first-choice goalkeeper Gurpreet Singh Sandhu, who is currently serving a two-match ban for his direct red card. The Portuguese head coach, however, does not consider the absence of Bengaluru’s experienced custodian as an advantage to his team’s prospects. “Let me tell you this, an advantage is when they don’t play with a goalkeeper but that won’t happen. To be honest, I don’t care about it. I have to care about my team and my goalkeeper is playing, so I have no problem. I just know that they are going to have one goalkeeper for sure in goal tomorrow,” he explained.

NorthEast will also be charged up after their ace winger, Halicharan Narzary made quite an impact in the previous match after starting for the first time this season. Discussing him, Deus said, “Halicharan didn’t have pre-season with us, as he was always with the national team. He didn’t know our game before, so he didn’t play the first match. In the second he played a little bit more with us. In the third, he had a good time to understand the concepts and interact with his teammates. Now he is completely integrated into the team. When he works hard and shows a better performance than his teammates in the same position, he plays.”