Clayton, Suherd’s Flood Of Wasted Opportunities, East Bengal Lost Again At Home! Frustrated Fans: Despite the pain of the loss in the derby, the East Bengal fans kept their eyes on the TV expecting good football today. But once again, disappointment befell the red and yellow fans. A big part of the match is unplanned football, a flurry of missed chances, a golden opportunity to catch the opponent and then miss that opportunity, all in all, East Bengal is the East Bengal of the past two years.
East Bengal put up quite a fight despite losing the derby due to a goalkeeping error. Several fans also claimed that their team would have won if some referees’ decisions had been in their favor. Those claims don’t hold much weight though as Mohun Bagan are a cohesive unit, albeit a bit out of form before the start of the ISL. A loss against them was expected by many realistic East Bengal fans. But after what the East Bengal footballers did on the field against Chennaiyin FC today, many optimistic fans can no longer trust this team.
There is no doubt that Chennaiyin FC was quite a bit ahead in terms of possession in the first half. But the attacking footballers of East Bengal got the golden opportunity to lead the team several times in the counterattack. But VP Suher and Clayton Silva could not keep the ball between Tekathi despite getting the opposition goalkeeper Devjit Mazumder alone twice. Doherty also missed a golden opportunity to push the team forward by being too selfless once.
From the start of the second half, East Bengal stepped up their attack. Himanshu Jhangra started to attract attention when he came onto the field as a substitute. But there were no clear-cut chances like the first-half chances. On the other hand, in the 69th minute, Chennaiyin’s lanky defender Bhafa scored from a corner kick to silence the red and yellow fans present.
But in the excitement of scoring, he may have forgotten that he had already seen a yellow card. Taking off his jersey to deliver a touching message, he was sent off after a second yellow card. East Bengal had a chance to squeeze 10-man Chennaiyin. But in just 5 minutes, after elbowing Anirudh Thappa and seeing a red card, East Bengal side back Sarthak left the field. Then East Bengal coach Stephen Constantine tried desperately to field Eleandro, Mobashi, and Aniket Yadav. But far from getting a goal, the attacking players of East Bengal failed to create proper pressure on the Chennaiyin FC defense.
East Bengal lost 1-0 at home and dropped to the 10th position in the league table. Only North East United are behind them. The red and yellow army is struggling after winning only one match and losing four matches. The next match is at Bengaluru FC’s home ground. East Bengal fans are not expecting anything from that match. Savvy supporters also understand that every year there is an investor vs. ex-executive conflict and they have nothing more to gain if the team changes every year. Even God cannot answer the question of when East Bengal’s glory will return.
