Former England goalkeeper and current Kerala Blasters FC player-coach David James showed no anxiety while speaking to the media at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Kochi today. James knew that his side needed to register a win against FC Pune City on Tuesday amongst other things, in order to keep their hopes alive for a place in the play offs, and was confident that the Blasters would rise to the occasion.“We played Pune before and we won (1-2), but the positive thing about the fixture is that both sides have to win and the equivalent results from the Kolkata and Delhi games affect both teams in the same way. We have only one defeat at home, thanks to a moment of brilliance from Chennai, and this is what gives us confidence going into tomorrow’s game,” he said at the press conference.The former Liverpool goalkeeper revealed that besides one injury (to defender Ramandeep Singh), he has the whole squad ready and fit for the game tomorrow, him included. “I am fortunate that I have had a squad of 28 players to train and select for the game tomorrow. We are in a good position to put a good squad out for tomorrow’s game,” James asserted.The gangling Englishman said he had no problem with the schedule of matches, which is different from what is prevalent in other leagues. “When you compare schedules of other leagues to the Hero Indian Super League, it is unique, as the last games of the other leagues are all played together on the same day; but I am ok with it,” he observed.James added that as a consequence (the Chennai-Delhi match precedes the Kerala-Pune one), his team could be out before the kick-off, depending on how the results go. “But we have one focus, that is, beating Pune, and even if the Delhi result goes against us, we still want to win it,” he insisted. “If we had won our last three home games, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. Because of last night’s result (Mumbai beat Kolkata 2-1), there are a couple of options that could go our way.”James believes that although tomorrow’s game is crucial, it is difficult to make changes in the line-up, because the team he has fielded in the past has been playing well. “With regards to me, I am fit, but it gets hard to tell Sandy (Sandip Nandy) to sit out, especially after he won the Hero of the Match award in the previous game. Also, the players that I have selected have been playing well, and sometimes, the system I play also relates to the players I have and the opposition that we are playing against,” he explained.
