Kerala Blasters FC’s newly-appointed coach Terry Phelan is one for building confidence in his players ahead of their 2015 Hero Indian Super League (ISL) game against in-form FC Pune City at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Kochi on Wednesday.

Last year’s finalists Kerala have conceded 10 goals so far as opposed to eight scored and at the pre-match press conference, Phelan, the former Ireland defender, was of the opinion that building confidence was important in overcoming that shortcoming. “Yes, we have conceded goals and players have been switching off. We have to build confidence in the players so that they don't make such mistakes me and Trevor [Morgan] have been working on that,” Phelan told reporters on Tuesday.

Kerala have had had a forgettable season so far as they prop up the table with five points from seven matches and Phelan shed light on how the training sessions had been going under his supervision.

“The players have been training…We have to stay positive, I've got great staff along with me; we have got Trevor [Morgan] with us also which is great. He knows the players a little bit better than me obviously but the self-esteem and motivation is already there among the players. They are responding well to the training sessions and having fun.”

Meanwhile, Kerala assistant coach Morgan, who sat alongside the head coach, mapped out a plan for his team over the remaining of the league stage and said worrying about other teams’ strengths wasn’t going to help. “We can't keep worrying about other teams, we have to now take the game to them and show them what we've got.

“We have got seven games remaining and we've got to win five or four, draw three. I can't bring anything negative into the game…We have to go forward now, we hope that every game we play we win that game. We have to be solid defensively as well.

“In the last game [vs Chennaiyin FC that ended in a 1-1 draw] we did very well…we were handling the game well…If there was any team that could win the last match I thought it was us, we just have to keep forward with the right mind.”

Morgan also said his team had enough quality to bring their campaign back on track. “Yes, like I said before we have the quality in our team to win matches. We need five wins in the next seven games and we've got to do it.”