Mumbai City FC return to the Mumbai Football Arena on Sunday to take on an in-form Chennaiyin FC squad, after a hard-earned tie against Kerala Blasters FC in their previous encounter. Out of the four games, Mumbai has played in Hero Indian Super League (ISL) 2017-18, they have managed to win just once and that too at home.

Present at the pre-match press conference was the Mumbai captain Lucian Goian who highlighted that playing at home does add an extra edge to their overall confidence. “It was very important for us to win the first game that we played at home (against FC Goa), and it was important for the fans as well. Also, tomorrow, playing at home, we have the fans behind us who have been fantastic every time. We hope that their support will make it easier for us, though it won’t be an easy game. Chennaiyin are coming off the back of wins, but we are playing at home and we are ready. We have had some good training sessions, and we hope we can get the three points.”

Having just won a single fixture this season, he was asked by the media if the team has been able to identify what is going wrong, to which he replied, “If we have any weaknesses, the natural thing to do is to improve on that. That is why we try to analyse every game and every player to see where we can improve. In the game against Bengaluru, we didn’t play like we wanted to, but we have improved from game to game. We have a strong group and have shown some great character in the last match against Kerala.”

When asked to assess their opponents on Sunday, who enter the match on the back of three consecutive wins, he said, “We are prepared for everything. The most important thing for us is to control the game and the rhythm of the game. We will start with this idea from the beginning, and we hope to make the game easy for ourselves. We have shown that we are looking better from game to game, and that gives us a lot of confidence.”

The Romanian also shared that even though Chennai’s talisman Jeje Lalpekhlua has got back his goal-scoring groove, Mumbai aren’t just keeping him in their thoughts. “We haven’t specially discussed anything about him, we have discussed things about the team. He is a very good player and a striker who can score goals, but I hope that after tomorrow’s game, our striker is on the winning side. It is difficult to play against him, as I remember from last year, but we know him, and what we have to do to stop him,” he concluded.