Defending Hero Indian Super League (ISL) champions ATK were held to a goalless draw by Jamshedpur FC at the JRD TATA Sports Complex in Jamshedpur on Friday. The players from both teams found it hard to play on a difficult pitch and chances were few and far between. Speaking to the media at the post-match press conference was ATK head coach Teddy Sherringham.

He began by agreeing that it was tough on the night, but lauded the players for their commitment. “It was a really tough hard-fought draw,” Sheringham admitted. “The pitch didn’t help the game for either team tonight. It was a tough spectacle and is not one of the games you put in the archive. But when you look at the players, you see their commitment, 22 players working hard on a pitch like that. You have to commend all 22 really.”

He was particularly critical about the poor conditions of the pitch, pointing out that his team was lucky not to have multiple injuries to deal with. “Five minutes into the match, I turned around and said that this could be really bad,” the Englishman revealed. “You could get bad injuries on that (pitch). You saw our goalkeeper coming out in the last two minutes to the edge of the box and his legs kind of buckled underneath him. We are lucky that we haven’t got more than one injury.”

The one injury Sheringham was referring to was that of midfielder Eugeneson Lyngdoh, who picked up a knock in the closing stages of the first half. “Eugeneson got a whack on the inside of his knee,” he explained. “There’s no ligament damage with it. It was a heavy blow, but when you know it’s just a blow on the inside, we should be okay with that one.”

As far as positives from the game went, Sheringham praised his attackers for playing as per plan, citing Hitesh Sharma’s goal that was correctly ruled offside as an example. “I was pleased from a goal scoring point of view that Zequinha hit the target, made the ‘keeper work and Hitesh (Sharma) and Robin (Singh) was there for the rebounds, we worked on that a lot. I liked the fact that strikers are getting in there and trying to score from rebounds,” he said.