Kerala Blasters FC played out their second consecutive goalless draw in Hero Indian Super League (ISL) 2017-18 at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Kochi against Jamshedpur FC. Even with one of the best attacking-units in the league, Kerala failed to break down Jamshedpur’s resolute defence, surviving two narrow escapes themselves.

In the post-match press conference, Kerala head coach Rene Meulensteen was asked why his offence failed to fire two games in a row. “Believe me, it’s nothing to do with a lack of willingness. It’s just a matter of waiting for the first goal to go in, to have that confidence flow into the players. The most important thing for us is to keep learning and do the right things. You have to thank the keeper (Paul Rachubka) that we kept a clean sheet today. He was outstanding today although we probably had most of the ball. We need to up the speed of play, switch the play quicker, turn the defenders quicker to cross the ball. Every game is an ongoing learning curve and this is another one. The fans deserve a good brand of football, a lot of chances and hopefully goals. It’s early days. When that first goal will go in, things will surely improve,” he said.

Every team has got its own identity, you know. Steve’s (Coppell) team, like we said yesterday, were really organized. It was really a matter of having to break them down. One good opportunity from the left, if that probably goes in at some point in the game, then they have to change something. We’re probably hitting the wall at the moment to get that first opportunity, that first goal. There was another one with CK (Vineeth) hitting that header. We have to focus on what we do, what we did well and what we need to improve on,” he added.

Young defender Lalruatthara started for the second time this season and put on another inspiring display. Speaking about his performance and the positives he takes from the game, Meulensteen replied, “Lalruatthara is obviously a right-footed player playing on the left. I like his energy, I like his competitiveness. He never gives up. But at the same time, he’s also a young boy. We want to play a good brand of football. It’s easy to go from back to front. I’m sure the players will improve week in week out, game in game out. The players, you have to give them the confidence, you have to show them the way, that’s what we do in training. The positives are obviously the clean sheets. It is a positive because they’re so important. In retrospect, we’ve got things in place, we’ve got a great goalkeeper here. We need to improve in other areas and that is mainly in the attacking third and the final pass. We need to find the recipe to get that right.”

Another incident which came to the fore in Friday’s fixture was Dimitar Berbatov’s continuous tussle with Mehtab Hossain on the field, but Meulensteen did not seem to read much into it. “It’s a bit of emotion that happens on the pitch, you know. I won’t make too much out of it. In the end, Mehtab showed that respect. He’s a good competitor, he doesn’t give up. Other than that, it was a little bit of a hustle and bustle, nothing more than that... It’s not going to be easy and you have to work hard for every point you want to get on the board,” he concluded.