Mumbai City FC head coach Alexandre Guimaraes is wary of NorthEast United FC ahead of their Hero ISL 2016 encounter at the Mumbai Football Arena on Friday. Mumbai won their first game against FC Pune City but will be up against a team that has felled Kerala Blasters FC and the mighty FC Goa in successive games.“What is interesting from my point of view is that every game in this short league with no time to prepare extensively is to focus more on the players in your side. They deserved to win their first two games and now we will have to try harder to manage the game and win because what they do they do very well,” the Costa Rican told reporters on Thursday.“First match we won against a very good team. So this is always good because we have a bad history of not winning away as well as not winning our first match so it feels very good to win the first game against a very tough team. I have heard that Pune is one of the contenders for the title so the win was great, but that’s the past. The next day on, we started focusing on the second game.”For many, marquee player Diego Forlan holds the key as regards Mumbai’s semis chances this season. Guimaraes believes the same, however, he made it clear that the scoring responsibility won’t be entirely the Uruguayan’s.“Yes, we are trying to find solutions in offence and also for him not to have all the responsibility to score. A few days before the Pune game we had a situation with Gaston [Sangoy] getting injured which was a big blow to us because he was our top-scorer in the pre-season. We also don’t have Sony [Norde], a big miss for us in offence. But I think we managed well, tomorrow will be another test for us to improve in that area,” Guimaraes said.“Day by day he [Forlan] is improving in regard to his leadership. He is getting more confident as he knows he has my permission to go to the players and have a talk with them. He is not only talking to foreign players, he talks to everyone. This is very good for the local lads as they will learn a lot from him.”Guimaraes also said the Mumbai team management was taking steps to ensure Forlan didn’t burn himself out as there was little recovery time between matches. “We are taking care of that. From the beginning we spoke about that with my staff, we know his situation. He knows this as well. Strikers want to play every game, so this is good. We just need to have good communication with him, he also needs to keep telling us how he feels.”The match also marks Mumbai’s first home game at the Mumbai Football arena, after entertaining their opponents at the much bigger DY Patil Stadium in the previous two seasons. Guimaraes was of the opinion that playing in a smaller stadium in front of a dense crowd will stand his team in good stead. “The atmosphere at the DY Patil Stadium is the past. We are glad to be playing at home. It is much better to play in a low-capacity stadium when it is full than a 50,000-60,000 capacity stadium but empty. So we like that very much, we know that it is going to be the first time we are going to play and know the stadium so I hope we can give a very good performance at home. It will be important to involve our fans and make sure they recognize that we have a team that is ready to fight till the end.”Guimaraes also informed that star midfielder Jackichand Singh was now fully fit and could start tomorrow.Meanwhile, Mumbai’s goal-scorer at FC Pune City, Matias Defederico said it was important the team continued its good work on Friday. “It is very important to start with a win. The pre-season was really important for the win. We have the next two games at home so we are looking to continue winning. It is very crucial to go step by step,” the Argentine said.
