Bengaluru FC were beaten by Kerala Blasters FC in their Hero Indian Super League (Hero ISL) 2019-20 match-up at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Kochi on Saturday. Deshorn Brown opened the scoring for the defending champions in the first half but an important brace, courtesy of Bartholomew Ogbeche, sealed the deal for their local rivals.

Speaking to the media post the encounter, Bengaluru head coach Carles Cuadrat shed light on his tactics and what led to the loss. He said, “My players always give their 100%. It was my decision to play with a 5-4-1 system in order to not give Bartholomew Ogbeche and Messi Bouli much space. We tried to be compact and then go for the counter. Unfortunately, we were not clinical in front of goal. This is something we have been suffering through the season. We have been creating chances but haven’t been converting them and that’s what happened. We needed a gap of two goals and Kerala scored from two set-pieces. But then, this happens in football.”

The Spaniard also refused to criticise Udanta Singh for his sub-par performance in attack. “Udanta is a very good player. I think that this season he has worked a lot defensively. But unfortunately, he has not been clinical while attacking. He has not been making or scoring goals like last season, but we have to help him recover his form. Little things change the momentum. He assisted the goal against Kerala in the last game,” he commented.  

Having played three matches in a span of 10 days, the head coach was wary about the fitness level of his team but refused to accept that it was the reason for the loss, “The players can get tired sometimes. We were missing Sunil (Chhetri) and Juanan. We are going to miss Suresh (Wangjam) in the next AFC competition. But the team is competing very well. We needed to qualify for the top four and the AFC group stages, and we are working towards both.”         

Read the Match Report here.