Chennaiyin FC return to the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Chennai on Thursday to face ATK, after their 1-0 away win against FC Pune City, where captain Henrique Sereno’s clinical header gifted them a valuable three points. They presently sit second in the Hero Indian Super League (ISL) 2017-18 points table after back-to-back victories and will be raring to take on the defending champions, who currently languish at the bottom.

In the pre-match press conference, Chennai head coach John Gregory informed the media how the change in his starting XI after their first match loss to FC Goa, worked wonders for the team in the next two. He said, “We changed the line-up after the first match. We changed it obviously for the better. It shows the characters that I have in the team. Players that will keep going regardless of what’s happening on the pitch. Also, I have six Indian boys on the team and they have been very good in the last two games. It’s not always going to be the same team, we will obviously need to make changes. Sometimes you need to make one or two adjustments to improve in certain areas. We’ve scored three in the final 10 minutes which shows that my boys keep going until the final whistle. As I said, they’ve got a real willingness to work for each other. We’re really close as a team and that shows on the pitch.”

Another aspect which keeps hovering over Chennai’s overall team performance is the form of their talisman, Jeje Lalpekhlua, who is yet to score this season. But the Englishman seemed least perturbed. “I am not at all worried about Jeje. I thought his performance against Pune was his best performance of the season. He didn’t really get too many opportunities. That was down to a lack of chances and also great defending by Pune. I wouldn’t read much into that, he worked exceptionally hard and if he continues to work like that, the goals will come. Overall, he was very unselfish against Pune and really worked hard for the team,” he explained.

When asked for his thoughts on ATK head coach Teddy Sheringham, Gregory added: “I have coached against him when he was with Manchester United (as a player). He was an incredibly outstanding footballer and has just started his coaching role now... he’ll learn from his stint in England… and he also has a good coaching staff around him (which helps).”