Kerala Blasters FC and FC Pune City played out a 1-1 draw at the Shree Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex Stadium in Pune on Friday. The draw meant that the Blasters kept their unbeaten run in Hero Indian Super League (ISL) 2018-19 intact after Marko Stankovic’s opened the scoring for the hosts with a wonderful strike. However, Nikola Krcmarevic’s equaliser in the second half rescued a point for the visitors, who moved up to fifth in the league standings.

After the match, Pune’s interim coach, Pradyum Reddy began his post-match conference by sharing his thoughts on his team’s performance. “I think, obviously we knew that the way we play and given the little time we had to prepare, it was going to be an open game in terms of them being a good team and them being unbeaten this season. But on the balance of play, if you look at it, I can’t ask of more from the boys. What we worked on this week, the boys stuck to the game-plan and did exactly what we tried to do against Kerala Blasters today,” Reddy opined.

When asked if he was satisfied with the result, Reddy said: “We got to take the positives… It’s always going to be tough against Kerala, and they’re unbeaten this season. So, they aren’t an easy team to break down. But we had small targets - one of the targets was coming into half time with a clean sheet. We managed to do that, and we also scored a goal (as well).”

Reddy’s opposite number, David James, was unhappy with one of the referee’s decision, which disallowed a goal for his side on the brink of half-time. “As far as I’m aware, I think it might’ve been a mistake, but there was evidence on the big screen that the goal that was disallowed should’ve stood. I spoke yesterday about the unfortunate situation against Delhi, the equaliser (that was) offside and then the penalty that wasn’t given. And then today, I sit here thinking that we equalised in the first half, but it wasn’t,” James told reporters at the post-match conference.

The Englishman, however, was delighted with his team’s efforts, but is wary of the amount of draws Kerala have been involved in. “I can’t forget the performance by the players. We dominated the game. For the effort, desire from the team, again it was a good shift. It’s just another point and the unbeaten run is just helping us tally one point at a time. And it’s a long process and if we do that till the end of the season, we won’t make the playoffs. It’s nice being unbeaten, but we need (more) points,” James said.

Click here to read the match report.