Jamshedpur FC head coach Aidy Boothroyd urged his side to pick themselves up and not feel sorry for themselves after they went down to Kerala Blasters FC in the Hero Indian Super League (ISL) at JRD Tata Sports Complex Stadium, in Jamshedpur, on Sunday.

Dimitrios Diamantakos scored the only goal of the game as Kerala Blasters secured their fourth straight win. Meanwhile, for hosts Jamshedpur FC, it was their fifth defeat on the spin.

Boothroyd felt there were plenty of positives for the Red Miners despite their defeat to Kerala Blasters, one of them being the return of centre-back Eli Sabia. He further explained how the set pieces in their recent games haven’t been as effective because of the list of casualties in his squad. The JFC head coach also spoke about the chances his team missed and he demanded his players to be organised and clinical in front of goal.

Here are the excerpts from Boothroyd’s press conference:

How would you assess the game?

I thought there were lots of positives actually. What wasn't positive, was the goal that we conceded which was very disappointing. It came from a free kick, which we work on a regular basis. We had a shout for a penalty..but when things aren’t going well for you, you get those little bounces of the ball, those little breaks in the play, and the moment is a tough one, we're in a tough place. Thankfully, we've got Eli Sabia back through 90 minutes. That's good and positive. We should have a couple of players back in the next ten or seven days hopefully. So, we'll just keep going.

Set pieces have not been working well for your team, do you think that your team is lacking in that area?

I would think, yeah. I don't think we're as good at them as we were at the early part of the season. You know, we went up to Mumbai City FC, we scored from a long throw and scored from the corners. When you're in a time like this, you need to work on everything. So, we've got to prioritise what's important and the priority is getting people fit and getting a system that suits everybody. Because at the minute, it's round pegs in square holes. At the moment, we haven't got the people who we need to be there. You look at their team (Kerala Blasters FC) and it is a team of men. We're not quite there yet.

In terms of set pieces, you’re getting a lot of chances from free-kicks and corners. But despite those chances, you’ve been unable to convert those. Is that something you’ve been practicing in training and why hasn’t it worked so far?

Well, it has worked in the past. But I think it's a fair point. In the early part of the season, we were very organised in our set plays and we’d scored from set plays. But the final little bit is putting the ball in the net so we get the ball into a place where we can score. At that moment, we headed it straight to the goalkeeper who headed it over, volleying it over when we should have taken a little bit more care.

What I do think about this team is they're almost trying too hard. Trying so hard that it actually makes us not as strong. But I agree we should be converting our set pieces like earlier in the season.

From the next game, how many of your injured players would be able to come back?

Yeah, Eli (Sabia) is coming back and he played tonight. Wellington (Priori) should be joining further on and Germanpreet (Singh) - there’s my midfield. Here's my midfield but there's also my set-piece taker in Wellington. Well, what I don't want to do is to come out here and make excuses because I've never lost five games in a row. And it's tough, it's really tough. But the players are working hard. Yes, things aren't dropping for us, but they will. We've got to be persistent, rebound, and go again. We’ve got to not feel sorry for ourselves.

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