Chennaiyin FC return to the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Chennai to host FC Pune City in the 2016 Hero Indian Super League on Tuesday after succumbing to back-to-back defeats against Delhi Dynamos FC and Kerala Blasters FC on the road. The defending champions currently occupy seventh spot with 10 points from nine matches and head into the contest having shipped seven goals in their last two games.

Speaking to the media ahead of the clash against Pune, Chennaiyin head coach, Marco Materazzi vowed that his side will keep fighting to get into the semis, while also issuing a rallying cry to supporters asking them to flock to the stadium in their thousands. “We’ll keep on fighting and we will do anything we can for Chennaiyin but maybe you [fans] can help out as well by turning up as 30,000 [people] in the crowd can help as well. I have been a fan as well when I was a kid but a good fan is one who is there when the team is in need. It is easy to cheer us when we are winning but we need them to cheer for us when we are in a bad moment,” Materazzi said.

The Super Machans currently have the worst defensive record in the league having conceded 14 goals from nine games. However, Materazzi made it clear that he wasn’t reading too much into their dubious record in defence this year. “Last game we lost 3-1, where the first goal we thought was a foul. The second was a mistake by the keeper and the third was a counter attack. To summarise, we’ve conceded seven against Delhi [in two matches] but others have been either from free-kicks or like against Mumbai City FC, it was a 25-yard shot. We’re not that inconsistent but you can’t predict these things. More importantly, I wanted Dudu to score the second goal [for us] against Mumbai and Kerala, but as I said in football you cannot predict these things,” he said.

Chennai have conceded the most number of goals in the dying minutes of matches this season. CK Vineeth punished them by netting in the 85th and 89th minutes for Kerala in their last game. When asked for an explanation for why they’ve been conceding late so frequently this season, Materazzi said: “We have always used our substitutions well so I don’t think fitness is an issue. And regarding conceding late, we have to be smarter and not concede free-kicks or set pieces towards the end because that’s where we’ve conceded the goals.”

Despite the Super Machans’ defensive frailties, Materazzi believes that his side have enough quality to still make the semis. “In Kolkata, we saw some inexperience shown in that drawn game. In Pune, we conceded a free-kick that changed the whole game which we were dominating. In the Mumbai game, we didn’t close the game and the shot [by Leo Costa] came from 25-yards. But yes, we have shown that we can fight with every team in the ISL like in Kerala for the first 15 minutes, Kerala did not cross the half way line and did not have a shot on goal and we were dominating and that shows we still have the quality to make it,” he said.