With their play-off ambitions at stake, ATK will square off against FC Pune City at the Shree Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex Stadium in Pune on Sunday. Anything less than a win from the match will leave Steve Coppell's men in a seriously disadvantageous position in the race for the top four.

Ahead of the crunch tie, indiansuperleague.com caught up with ATK defender John Johnson for an exclusive interview. Here's what he had to say.

Thoughts on head coach Steve Coppell.

He’s got a lot of experience in the game and he brings that. He’s very relaxed and a very intelligent guy and he puts thoughts across really well to the team. I think he’s really good at helping players individually as well.

What is the mood like in the dressing room?

The mood is very good. It’s positive and we’re all very excited. We’ve put ourselves in with a good chance of making the semi-finals now. We know that if we can pick up a win in the next two matches, we’ll be right in the mix. So, everyone in the camp is very positive and the boys are looking forward to the match.

Thoughts on your partnership with Andre Bikey.

Yeah, it’s gone really well. Andre (Bikey) is a very experienced player. He’s played at the top level in the UK. He had a really good career. So, he brings a lot of experience and I think that shows. He’s a good talker, so he helps you and a lot of the players around him as well. He has been very good and he is easy to play alongside.

How do you plan to stop FC Pune City's attacking force?

Well, they have a lot of good individuals as we all know. So, we’ll have to pay close attention to them. But yeah, it’s a match we’re looking forward to and we can’t just focus on them. We have to focus on the whole team. We’ll set up to try and win the match as we need to win the match. We know only a win is going to help us, so we’ll pay close attention to them. But we’ll try and play our own game too.

Read the match preview here.