Phil Brown’s Hyderabad FC were beaten 3-2 by Odisha FC at the Shree Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex Stadium in Pune on Wednesday. After going two goals down in the first half, Brown’s side demonstrated good spirit and had Odisha worried until the last whistle. The Englishman pointed to that determination as a major positive for his side and something which he was hoping to build on in the coming games.

Speaking at the post-match press conference, Brown said, “It was a great game for the neutrals. A great game for the Hero Indian Super League (Hero ISL). Plenty of goals, plenty of goal-mouth action. If you had said to me that we would have denied them the possession that they had before the game, I would have thought that it was a difficult task.”

“But we had a game plan. We played to a system and there was lots to admire about the performance. I think we played some good football. We had some good chances. We had more chances than the opposition. We’ve now got to dust ourselves down and get on with it. We got a big game against ATK in 10 days’ time. You’ve got no time to think about these things.”

“You got to get on with the next wave. There’s something to get from the game. There’s something to take from the game. But we got to stop giving stupid goals away. When you are bottom of the league and confidence is low, the silly goals turn against you. But we got to believe that we can turn the corner,” he added.

Applauding the tireless display of defender Adil Khan, the 60-year-old voiced, “I made it quite black and white for Adil. We had a conversation when we trained in Pune and I said to Adil that Gurtej (Singh) had given us an awful lot as a defender in the five-six games that he had played. Then he was suspended but he was back from suspension today and I wanted to bring back Gurtej into the fray.”

“But I also wanted to stop Marcos Tebar from playing. So, the black and white issue that we said to Adil was not play in midfield, but go and stop Tebar from playing. And I think, in my opinion and probably the national team manager’s opinion, in one-on-one situations, Adil is probably the best in the country. So, I could actually keep the character of the team strong with Gurtej behind and Adil with a job to do.”

“And I believe he did that job. When you stop Tebar from playing, you probably stop Odisha from playing. And we went a long way to doing that. Sometimes when you give players a certain job to do, it sort of takes away a little bit of their game. So, every credit to Adil for accepting the challenge and every credit to Adil for winning that challenge on an individual front. But we need to have 11 individuals winning their challenges. If we do, we have a better chance of winning the game of football than the result today,” claimed the Hyderabad head coach.

Read the Match Report here.