Bengaluru FC coach Marco Pezzaiuoli wants his players to be more dominating and be better at off-the-ball pressing as they face Odisha FC in match 97 of the Hero Indian Super League (ISL) 2021-22 season at the Athletic Stadium in Panaji, Goa on Monday.

Bengaluru FC rank sixth in the points table with 23 points in 17 matches. They are four points away from fourth placed Kerala Blasters FC, having played a game more than them.

The Blues lost their last match 2-1 against NorthEast United FC. Marco Pezzaiuoli's men had scored first but NorthEast United FC managed to snatch their points after two late goals. They have now suffered two back-to-back losses.

Ahead of their match against Odisha FC, head coach Pezzaiuoli addressed the media during the official pre-match press conference.

Here are the excerpts from the press conference.

Your qualification depends on the other team’s results. How difficult is the situation?

It’s normal in football that you need other teams to give you results. But we can only control ourselves, but if I am going to think about opponents to help us, that won’t help. I need to focus on my team and our own results.

How do you look at the game against Odisha FC?

It’s the same as the NorthEast United FC game, we need to focus only on Odisha FC’s game. There are three points to get. We need to improve, that’s obvious. Because if you see the last game, we played good for 20 minutes and then in the next 20, we gave the game to NEUFC. The same happened in the second half. We scored first but then conceded two goals. We need to be more dominant and press more off the ball against Odisha FC. We gave NorthEast United FC too much space in the midfield. We need to avoid it against Odisha FC because they are very good in counter attack.

How satisfied are you with Namgyal Bhutia's performance?

I like Bhutia very much. I think he is a similar player to Roshan [Naorem]. He has the potential to become a starting member in the BFC team. He has the quality. Of course, he needs to embrace his defensive ability. He was an offensive winger like Roshan and I switched him to fullback. In the beginning of the last match, he made good offensive runs, put in good crosses and combined well with Udanta [Singh]. I have a lot of confidence in him and I like his personality.

Yaya Banana made his full debut in the last match. What did you make of his performance?

Yaya gives us a lot of calm on the ball, and he is a player who brings a lot to the way we play. He had a very good game, but for the time we conceded, sometimes this happens when you haven’t played for a long time.