NorthEast United FC continued their splendid start to Hero Indian Super League (ISL) 2018-19 with a hard-fought 2-0 victory over Delhi Dynamos FC at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in New Delhi on Tuesday. Two late goals from Federico Gallego and Bartholomew Ogbeche sealed the Highlanders’ third victory of the campaign, taking them to the top of the table.

At the post-match press conference, a delighted Eelco Schattorie shared his thoughts on the match. “In the first half we tried to press a few times. Second half, yeah, we sat back a little bit more. So, physically you have to take your breathers. Eventually we got those two goals and we deserved it. Especially compared to the first half. I can only be very, very happy with this result. In an away game, a clean sheet and a young player comes in and does well. And we hardly gave any chances away and we scored two goals,” he enthused.

The Dutchman also spoke about his change in tactics due to the unavailability of some players as well as how he studied Delhi’s weaknesses prior to the match. “Regarding the game, we have some suspensions where we have to play with our centre-backs who are less comfortable to play football (out the back). So, I chose a little bit more of a direct game. I changed the system to a 4-4-2, analysed Delhi on where their weaknesses are. That plan worked well in the first half. We created those chances. The second part is that we hardly gave any chances away. Because my biggest worry was that Delhi like to play football, they played in a good tempo. But we closed them perfectly, in my opinion. They didn’t have one big chance and that was due to good organisation,” Schattorie said.

From Delhi’s end, their head coach Josep Gombau was present at the conference to address the media’s questions. The Spaniard looked a worried man with the start his side have made but remains confident nonetheless. “Yes, it’s a disappointing result tonight. It is not the result that we expect. In the first half I think NorthEast was better than us. In the second half I think we started strong and we had our moments in the game. After that the two mistakes we made, we conceded two goals. This league is a short league and it only has 18 games and one-third of the league is gone. We haven’t started well. We need to work hard, we need to focus, and we need to try and do better in the next games,” Gombau lamented.

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