FC Pune City host Kerala Blasters FC at the Shree Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex Stadium in Pune on Friday.  After a dismal start to Hero Indian Super League (ISL) 2018-19, the Stallions will be hoping to register their first win of the season to help kickstart their campaign and rejuvenate their playoff hopes.

Pradyum Reddy, interim coach of FC Pune City was at the pre-match press conference to share his thoughts ahead of the game against Kerala – a team Pune have found difficult to overcome in the past. “You can’t pick your opponents. The teams you get according to the schedule you have to play them. One thing I will say about the (poor) record against opponents (Kerala) in the ISL is every season’s different and if you look how the league’s been over the years, a lot of the times it’s different coaches, different players, completely different setups and different formations. So, I wouldn’t look too much into the record that’s happened in the previous seasons,” he told reporters.

Reddy summarised his team’s season so far while calling for an improvement in defence. “We haven’t had a good start to the season. We’ve just played one game at home, so I won’t look too much into statistics because it was just one game at home and one game where we didn’t score. In terms of goals conceded, definitely conceding 10 goals in four games is a huge concern, that’s something we need to rectify,” Reddy said.

He continued: “We can’t pick up points in the league if you concede two and a half goals per game so that’s an area we need to rectify. I believe if we rectify that aspect which we worked on this week in terms of conceding less goals, in terms of the fire-power that we have in our team, the attacking options, we do feel we have enough to score goals. So, we feel if we keep a clean sheet or concede less then we will definitely be able to pick up points in the coming games.”

Pune’s interim coach also stressed the importance of their games in November, viewing it as an opportunity for a turnaround in fortunes for them. “It’s an 18-game season and (we have) six games in this month, so it’s one- third of the season in the month of November (for us). Also, we have four of those games at home... Obviously, we have to turnaround our home record as well in terms of picking up points. So, that’s obviously crucial,” Reddy said.

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