Jamshedpur FC travel to the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Goa to meet FC Goa on Thursday in Hero Indian Super League (ISL) 2017-18. The visitors sit one rank lower than their opponents at sixth spot on the points table and enter the match as the best defensive team currently, with only four goals scored against them in eight matches. When they meet Goa, the most attacking side in the league (20 goals in 8 matches), the fans are sure to witness an intriguing battle of attack against defence.

Present for Jamshedpur in the pre-match press conference was head coach Steve Coppell, who began with his expectations from Thursday’s encounter. “It sounds like it’s going to be a great contest”, he began. “Test of our defence against the most fluid attacking unit. They (FC Goa) score goals freely as they’ve shown against a number of sides. It’s a challenge for us to stifle that threat and obviously do our best to hurt them as well. We have come here not just to defend, we want to play a full part in this game and that means not just doing our defensive duties but also trying to expose any weaknesses they might have at the back. I hope it’s a good game.”

He further revealed how he evaluates the Gaurs as a team. “It’s tough to play against them because they are so fluid going forward,” Coppell continued. “They are the top scorers in the competition. They have invention on the side. (Manuel) Lanzarote loads bullets for Coro (Ferran Corominas) to fire. They have good solid, creative midfielders as well. They are very attractive in possession going forward. They have leaked a few goals which they’ll be upset about. They’ll give you opportunities if you commit yourself. I can’t even think about a weak-link but they’ve lost games. The games lost in this competition are by a very tight margin. They won four and lost three.”

Coppell’s men are known to be the most difficult defensive set-up to breach this season, but the Englishman is not of the view that the team’s initial strategy was to follow that path. “There is no way we set up at the start of the season saying that we’ll defend and we’ll be successful. It was a series of circumstances and we’re a new team. As a new team, there hasn’t been the experience. We have the geographical challenge as well, there’s a lot of travelling that we have to do. The teams with three-four years experience have an advantage. I’m not making that as an excuse. We would like to be as attack-minded as possible,” Coppell said.

“We had an injury with Anas (Edathodika). Anas was obviously our first pick in the draft to play. And he’s had a few issues that changed the balance of the side. There is certainly no intention from our side to crawl through the season, we’re just trying to win football games. Kerala in year one got to the final scoring nine goals in 14 games in the competition. So, it’s not always about the attack. For a coach, it’s more pleasing to get a clean sheet. I’d love to win every game as Goa has been doing. It’s my job in tomorrow’s game to stifle them,” he explained.

The 62-year old always emphasized that he wants his side to score more goals which they did in their last encounter against Mumbai City FC, when they scored twice. However, it was also the first time that they conceded twice to finish 2-2, and when asked if it was his new strategy to shift more towards attacking, he replied, “Well, we’d like to. It’s our intention to play more expansive football going forward. Anas coming back has enabled us to play an extra international forward up front and that makes a difference. That’s been a bonus. Anas has been out for a while and he hadn’t trained much and our pitch is quite demanding so it’s a big question whether he should play. He obviously did play and came through the 90 minutes. He hasn’t had a great deal of time training with the back four and I think that was a little apparent. We hope that will be tidied up.”

Before leaving, Coppell also shared his views on how he feels about the progress of the Hero ISL and his team this season. “Well, I would say the shape of the positions of most of the teams is probably a fair reflection of the way the sides have played. You look at the defeats, there’s not one dominant team. The leads they’ve got at the top are not out of sight. I think every team has still got a realistic chance. You win three-four games and you are right up there. From the first game of the season, I said scheduling would be significant. We’re probably coming into our toughest spell in terms of scheduling. We’ve got six games in the next three weeks, with the extra travelling that we have to do. I’ll know by the end of January where we sit in the position of going forward. A difficult time starting with playing one of the best but we’re here to play the best and pick up points against the best,” he concluded.