ATK FC suffered a costly 3-1 defeat against Chennaiyin FC at the Vivekananda Yuba Bharati Krirangan in Kolkata on Sunday. The former champions didn’t get going throughout the course of the encounter, and were uncharacteristically lapse in defence. Courtesy of the loss, ATK now sit three points behind FC Goa in second place of the Hero Indian Super League (Hero ISL) 2019-20 table.

At the post-match press conference, ATK head coach Antonio Lopez Habas acknowledged that Chennaiyin were the better side and deserved to win the match. He said, “I think the team had no intensity. The injury to Anas (Edathodika) changed the plan. I have to congratulate Chennaiyin. Today was not a good performance from us.”

“Every day you cannot have the same performance. The way the opponent needed the points, we didn’t need it. In football, if you relax, it is impossible to win. When the team needed the points, the team competed 100%. But today, we didn’t compete fully,” he added.

The Spaniard also stopped short of blaming his defence, as he stated, “I think it is not a problem of the defensive line, it is a problem with the whole team. The team didn’t reduce space today. Today the entire team was responsible. It was a human mistake today. The target was to reach the semi-finals, and maybe, today, the team relaxed.”

Finally, when quizzed about the performance of Arindam Bhattacharja, the ATK head coach opined, “I don’t think Arindam was at fault. Maybe one day he is okay, another day he is fantastic. This is not the problem for me today. The problem was the collective performance today. I understand that my team didn’t have the same intensity like the last match. The opponent had full intensity. This is the difference today. It sometimes happens. Sometimes the other team needs the three points more than us. That’s why we lost the match.”

Read the Match Report here.