Mumbai City FC head coach Des Buckingham wasn’t overly critical of his players following the 3-1 loss against Hyderabad FC in the Hero Indian Super League (ISL) encounter at the Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru stadium in Margao, Goa on Saturday.

The Islanders lost despite taking a 6th minute lead through midfielder Ahmed Jahouh as Hyderabad FC stormed back through goals for Joao Victor, Bartholomew Ogbeche and Rohit Danu.

The defeat comes as a setback for the defending champions after the win over FC Goa and more importantly ahead of the big game against ATK Mohun Bagan who are setting the early pace in the Hero ISL this season.

Head coach Buckingham addressed the media after the game and here are the excerpts from his post-match press conference.

Did you expect this scoreline coming in this game?

I didn't expect the scoreline, I expected a tough game against a very good Hyderabad FC team and that's certainly what I think we got. I thought it was a pretty even game at 1-1 going into half-time. It was pretty fair and then we had the large proportion of the game where we dominated ball possession, played a lot of passes and created chance but it was Hyderabad FC who took theirs and that decided the game.

Your team took the lead in the sixth minute. What went wrong after that?

We had a lot of possession but we needed to be a lot more effective to come around the edge of the box and create chances that we want to create. The game got quite transitional at a point with a lot of fould for both sides. It became a bit broken. But I wouldn't say that anything went wrong massively it was just that Hyderabad FC took their chances and we didn't.

You face ATK Mohun Bagan next, which is a repeat of last season's final. How difficult will it be to pick up the team for that game in such a short time?

It won't be difficult for us. We didn't get carried away when we won last week. So no one will get carried away after we lost this game. So we will prepare the players in the same way and we look forward to that game.