After a poor start to the Hero Indian Super League (Hero ISL) 2018-19 season, a series of gritty performances have seen ATK claw their way up to the sixth position in the table. Their next challenge will pit them against league leaders Bengaluru FC at the Sree Kanteerava Stadium in Bengaluru on Thursday. The Blues are unbeaten in their 10 matches so far and ATK will need to play out of their skins if they aspire to take home all three points from the match.

At the pre-match press conference, ATK head coach Steve Coppell predicted that his team were in for another testing 90 minutes against a formidable opponent. "A tough game. It’s an obvious answer and the right answer. Bengaluru haven’t been beaten this season and that’s not an accident. They are a very strong team. Defensively they are very difficult to get at and in an attacking sense, they have a lot of dangerous players. So, it’s a challenge for every team in this division to try and beat them and be the first to win the three points against them and we’re the next in line. We’re looking forward to it," he said.

ATK are currently on a five-match unbeaten run and incidentally, their last defeat came against Bengaluru in the reverse fixture in Kolkata back in October. When asked what has changed in his team since the defeat, the Englishman replied, "Nothing. Over the course of a season, the more time you spend with the players, the more time you have to improve. Not only individual skills, but also the collective units within the team. Defensively, players get to know what each other want. We work very hard on the training field to get better on a daily basis. I think we can improve, and we have to improve to get into the top four."

Bengaluru will be without the injured Miku, who has missed their last five matches due to an injury. Coppell, however, felt the injury crisis in his own team evens out the odds. "They win just as easily without him as they do with him. Also, it evens things out because we’ve lost two strikers. We lost Kalu Uche and then we lost Emiliano Alfaro. So, both teams will be without key players. Miku is a key player but they’ve won without him," he said.

Finally, Coppell was asked whether he would be willing to settle for a point from possibly the toughest away match on paper. Unimpressed, the Englishman said, "I don’t even think about that. Every game we try and win. You commit to trying to win. You don’t even think about other options. We’re committed to trying to win this game. Simple as that. I don’t even know how to play for a draw. You go out for every match trying to win it."

Read the match preview here.