Mumbai City FC coach Nicolas Anelka was disappointed not to have taken all three points from their Hero Indian Super League Season 2 game against FC Pune City at the DY Patil Stadium.“We defended well and we played better in attack and it was good,” Anelka told reporters following a goalless draw against the Stallions on Friday evening.In the first Maharashtra derby of the season in Pune last month, FC Pune City were very impressive in their 3-1 victory but on Friday they appeared to be defensive in approach. “I think in the first game they were waiting for us to attack and they did well. But this time we knew it so we managed to go out with a good defence I think we did pretty well,” Anelka praised his defenders for standing up to Pune successfully.Mumbai missed their star players Sunil Chhetri and Sony Norde in the match. While Haitian Norde was away on national duty, India striker Chhetri played in the 2018 World Cup qualifier game against Guam less than 24 hours ago. When asked if he contemplated bringing Chhetri on in the second half of the match, Anelka replied in the affirmative: “He played yesterday…If he gets injured now he gets injured for the rest of the tournament so we rested him so that he will be fresh later. But I did think about it,” he said.However, Anelka refused to chalk the draw up to the absence of the duo. “…We can't help. If they're going, they're going but we had them before and we didn’t win, we have other quality players as well and we did well so I'm quite happy with the team altogether,” the former France international said. Meanwhile, FC Pune City coach David Platt was happy to have taken one point away from home. “It's all about controlling the game and making sure that we don't go down quickly…So we wanted to defend and looking at it as a defensive point of view, it was a good performance today,” the Englishman said.Following the draw in their 10th game, Pune joined FC Goa at the top on 15 points. However, they have played one more game. Platt was overall satisfied. “I think we did splendid this season…We should never rest in this kind of season. It keeps you going forward. Controlling your own performance is important. In football you win and lose but we controlled our own performance, that's good,” he said.
