Defending champions ATK crashed to their fifth defeat of the season when Chennaiyin FC came from behind to edge them 2 – 1 at the Vivekananda Yuba Bharati Krirangan in Kolkata on Thursday. Debutant Mark Paterson’s first-half strike was cancelled out by goals from Mailson Alves and Jeje Lalpekhlua in the second period. The defeat further dents ATK’s hopes of entering the playoffs, as they stay rooted at the eighth spot on the Hero Indian Super League (ISL) 2017-18 table.

Speaking to the media during the post-match press conference was the host’s interim head-coach Ashley Westwood, and he started off by sharing some worrying news regarding one of their most influential players. “Zequinha has obviously got a hamstring injury,” he revealed. “When you see somebody sprint and pull back like that, you know instantly that he has got some soft tissue damage. With the severity of it, I would say, you are looking at four weeks (of his being out of contention). Maybe even four to six. If he’s lucky, he may get away with three. Obviously, it has come at a bad time with so many games coming in thick and fast.”

Westwood also admitted that the loss was hard to swallow, given that ATK came up with a good show on the pitch. “Regarding the result, obviously going in at half-time with a 1 – 0 lead, you don’t expect to concede two goals in the second half,” he stated. “We fought really hard and we showed a lot of desire and aggression. I feel disappointed because I honestly thought a draw would have been a fair result. We matched Chennaiyin and we gave them a really tough game. It was unfortunate that we made a couple of mistakes to concede two goals.”

The Englishman also refused to blame any individual for the loss, highlighting the fact that the team worked as a whole. “We don’t want to point fingers at players,” remarked the 41-year-old. “We win as a team and we lose as a team. We know where we have gone wrong. We conceded from a set-piece, that we had spoken about and worked on. That was the key one really; going to 1 – 1. If we had kept it at 1 – 0 for a little bit longer, then obviously, that would have eradicated the second. But there is no point singling people out because, at the end of the day, we work together, and win and lose together.”

Before concluding, he also spoke about the positives gathered from the game, as the team prepares for the next few fixtures at home. “We were never going to win all five home games,” he admitted. “We’ve spoken about winning four, possibly three, with a draw to keep us in the mix. This is obviously nothing but a loss. But, at the end of the day, we showed a little bit of response, reaction, some intensity and desire. It gives us something to build on. We’ll forget we’ve lost three points. At the end of the day, we’ve had improvement and that’s encouraging.”