NorthEast United vs SC East Bengal: 5 Talking Points from the ISL Match

Perosevic dependent SC East Bengal

SC East Bengal star Perosevic has been undoubtedly the best player in Red and Gold this season till now. But the Calcutta giants is heavily dependent on Perosevic while attacking. The Croatian forward has netted twice and assisted once for SCEB till now in 7 matches.

NorthEast United however did their homework pretty well and man marked Perosevic the whole game with a minimum of two defenders at a time. Preventing SCEB from making any promising chances. Although Perosevic did make very few chances with his individual brilliance those chances failed to capitalize due to Chima Chukwu being extremely off coloured. At the second-half injury time, Antonio Perosevic went into a tussle with the referee and was shown a direct red card. He is set to miss the next match for SCEB against Hyderabad FC.

Invisible SC East Bengal defense

NorthEast United FC broke the deadlock at the hour mark with VP Suhair scoring at the stroke of 60^th minute from taking advantage of pathetic SCEB man-marking. The highlanders doubled their lead just eight minutes later when Flottmann headed a cross inside the net leaving the SCEB defense standing still and watching.

For most of the game, The Red and Gold defenders seemed invisible while defending with no pressuring, good man-marking, or any good deceiving tackle. Not to mention, SCEB defenders were pathetic while defending aerial threats too. The Highlanders could have scored more goals if they had a proper number nine to finish the chances.

Pathetic first-half display

The first half of the game showed us why both NorthEast United FC and SC East Bengal are lying at the extreme bottom of the table. Before the lemon break, NEUFC along with SCEB lacked the basics of football in simple terms. Both teams committed numerous miss passes, looked pathetic while defending and most importantly were very scrappy in the midfield.

Both teams missed a few open chances to put their name on the score sheet too. However, in the second half, the highlanders collected themselves and improved heavily. They looked sharper while attacking, Camara took control of the whole midfield. With continuous counter-attacks, VP Suhair and Flottmann were able to score past Arindam taking advantage of unorganized SCEB defense.

Both teams dealt huge injury blow

Both NorthEast United FC and SC East Bengal FC have lost a number of important players to injury, and to increase the worry, Hernan Santana for NEUFC and Franjo Prce for SCEB got added to the injury list. Hernan Santana got injured just before the East Bengal encounter and was spotted watching the game from the stands.

Losing Santana is a big blow for the highlanders after Gallego was ruled out last week for the rest of the season. While on the other side, torcbearer center back Franjo Prce got injured and was replaced by Dervisevic in the stroke of 29^th minute. He was later spotted limping and accompanied by two SCEB support staff into the dressing room. Prce's injury looks critical and probably is going to miss the next game.

SC East Bengal still winless

SC East Bengal continued their horrible run in the Indian Super League. After playing seven matches, SCEB remains the only winless team in the league, placed at the exact bottom of the table. The Kolkata giants has also conceded the most number of goals in the league so far. With just 3 draws and 4 defeats, SCEB is yet to win a game. The defense looks awful with poor man-marking display

The attack looks completely dependent on Antonio Perosevic. Chima Chukwu as number nine is yet to make a mark for his team. If this form continuous, it will be very hard for SCEB to win even one game in the whole tournament. Up next they will be facing 3^rd placed Hyderabad FC and undoubtedly will go into the match as second favorites.