Goals from Modou Sougou and Arnold Issoko on either side of the break ensured Mumbai City FC all three points in Saturday’s Hero Indian Super League (Hero ISL) clash against Delhi Dynamos FC at the Mumbai Football Arena.

Apart from the Rafael Bastos’ penalty miss early in the second half, head coach Jorge Costa hardly had anything to complain about. He was understandably happy with the response of his boys after their heavy loss to FC Goa in their last match. Speaking at the post-match press conference, he said, “Today was a good game. Only three days after our previous game, we didn’t have much time to do anything. I only spoke to players. And today we won 2-0 but we could have finished the game earlier. We had some lucky goals, but we also had certain opportunities. We had a penalty and we missed the penalty. But it’s okay. At the end, if we get three points I will be happy.”

“There’s something we discussed after the last game and I said, this is our job, our life, and one has to be prepared to work and do whatever we can on the field. We don’t have time to celebrate, we don’t have time to cry. After the last game, we tried to forget the last 20 minutes. We played well, but we lost 5-0. That’s what I told the players today - that we made mistakes and people are not happy with us. Today we have to change the things,” he added.

Costa opted to play Ravi Kumar in goal today, and the goalkeeper repaid his head coach’s trust with a brilliant display. “Ravi had a very good game today. He gave confidence to the team and this is very important. Also, it’s the first game that he played today,” Costa said.

Costa’s opposite number, Josep Gombau, on the other hand, felt that his side was unlucky not to get anything from the match. “In the first half we started well in the first 20 minutes. After that, Mumbai started pressing higher and we had difficulties. In one of the transition plays, they scored. But in the second half I think we played much better. We had the ball, put in a lot of crosses, had a lot of shots. But in one of the transitions, they scored again. I am happy with the work the boys are doing. We are playing a progressive football, but we are not finding the net, we are not scoring,” he said.

The Spaniard also made a surprising half time substitution in the match, bringing on Bikramjit Singh in place of Vinit Rai. When asked for an explanation, Gombau suggested that it was made keeping the upcoming games in mind. “Look we have a lot of games in a short time and we are doing some rotation in the midfield. Vinit and Bikramjit are sharing the position on the right. And today we start with Vinit and at half time, we use Bikram. We have a game on Tuesday,” he added.

Click here to read the match report.