Coyle pleased with CFC’s effort

Chennaiyin FC beat NorthEast United FC 2-0 at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Chennai on Thursday to register its second win on a trot in Indian Super League (Hero ISL) 2019-20. Rafael Crivellaro and Nerijus Valskis were on the scoresheet yet again, condemning the Highlanders to its fourth loss in five matches.

Speaking at the post-match press conference, Chennaiyin head coach Owen Coyle gave his take on the game and said, “The chances we created tonight through our football were outstanding. My career was as a striker and I scored a lot of goals and missed as many. I don’t ever worry when, as a striker, we miss chances. The thing to worry about is when you are not creating these chances. We had 21 chances on goal with 13 on target, against a very good side. We managed to curtail the threat of Andrew Keogh, who is an outstanding striker,” he said.

Crivellaro and Valskis scored sumptuous goals to ensure the home side took all three points. On the goals and consecutive wins, Coyle commented, “The goals by Rafael and Nerijus were outstanding goals, but we could have scored more. It’s important to have won back-to-back matches because we haven’t done that in a while. We still have a lot of work to do, but what we are showing is that we are a very good team. We are pleasing to the eye and when we go forward, we are dangerous with the quality of Andre (Schembri), Rafael and Nerijus.”

The 53-year-old was also praised Edwin Vanspaul, who slotted into a midfield role in the absence of suspended Germanpreet Singh. “Edwin was outstanding in the absence of Germanpreet, with Laldinliana (Renthlei) slotting into right back. I tried a few other players in that position but when I played Edwin there in the training, it worked very well, and everybody felt good about it. I thought it was an outstanding night for the club. The fans were brilliant, vocal and colourful. They keep us moving in the right direction and that’s what we must do. It was a wonderful night of football.”

Adding to this, Coyle stated, “We want to be in the top four of the league as the season enters the business end and to do that we have to keep winning consistently because we have to catch up. In the six remaining games, we have four at home and two away. We just have to keep that continuity and consistency up.”