Bengaluru FC head coach Marco Pezzaiuoli rued the big defensive mistakes that cost his team the points against Odisha FC in the Hero Indian Super League (ISL) as they fell to a 2-1 loss at the Tilak Maidan stadium in Vasco, Goa.

Odisha FC’s Javi Hernandez made the Blues pay for two defensive errors early in either half that SUnil Chhetri and Co couldn’t recover from.

The Blues captain missed a penalty and while the rebound was converted it was disallowed by the referee for encroachment. Pezzaiuoli expressed surprise at the referee’s call but concluded that his team needed to play a lot better to win the game after those costly errors.

He spoke to the media after the game and here are the excerpts from his post-match press conference.

Bengaluru FC have conceded five goals in the first two matches. There were some defensive lapses in your team today. That has been the case in many matches in the ISL this season. What is the reason behind the errors today and in the league in general?

I think before talking about other teams, we should talk about ourselves. In the first five minutes we made a big mistake and then also for the second goal, Udanta lost the ball and we gave the free-kick to the opponent. Also the position of Gurpreet for that goal was also not proper.

In terms of the league, I don't see it as a bad thing, I think it's a good thing that the teams are scoring goals. EVen we had the chance to score the second and the third goals as well and we make the game 80% easy for us to play more defence. But after they scored the goal, the game was difficult. We had the chances to score in the last minute and you could see we wanted to win the game but if you make mistakes, then you have to be better than the opponent.

Your thoughts on the refereeing decision following Sunil Chhetri's penalty.

It was about two players who were in the box. In about 99% of the world, the penalty is retaken. I'm not sure why that was the case, you have to ask the referee. Such incidents have happened often across the world and the penalty is retaken. Sunil is usually a top scorer in such situations but he can miss sometimes.

Roshen Naorem delivered some brilliant set-pieces today. Was that a big factor in his selection tonight?

He is training well, he had a good pre-season and I think he deserves to play. He is a young player who was picked up from the youth team. He needs to get this kind of experience.

Is there a lack of creativity without Cleiton Silva in the team and what was the reason behind leaving him out of the starting XI?

Cleiton is a very good player, he had a good game the last time out. But there are 20 games and we play every three days. It's not about lacking creativity because we have a lot of creative players.