ISL 2018 | Eelco Schattorie overwhelmed with Northeast United's disciplined performance

Delhi Dynamos’ miserable run continued on Tuesday with the latest team to disappoint them was NorthEast United FC as the hosts lost 2-0 in the Hero Indian Super League (ISL). The Highlanders is now sitting at the top of the table riding on goals by Federico Gallego and Bartholomew Ogbeche. Their new manager sounded delighted with the team’s display as NorthEast finally look on the prowl. 

“In the first half we tried to press a few times. Second half, yeah, we sat back a little bit more. So, physically you have to take your breathers. Eventually we got those two goals and we deserved it. Especially compared to the first half. I can only be very, very happy with this result. In an away game, a clean sheet and a young player comes in and does well. And we hardly gave any chances away and we scored two goals,” said Schattorie after the match.

NorthEast took till the 83rd minute to score the goal and the credit must be given to the manager who took his time but eventually got his tactics right with the second half changes. 

”Regarding the game, we have some suspensions where we have to play with our centre-backs who are less comfortable to play football (out the back). So, I chose a little bit more of a direct game. I changed the system to a 4-4-2, analysed Delhi on where their weaknesses are. That plan worked well in the first half. We created those chances. The second part is that we hardly gave any chances away. Because my biggest worry was that Delhi like to play football, they played in a good tempo. But we closed them perfectly, in my opinion. They didn’t have one big chance and that was due to good organisation.”  

Delhi head coach Joseph Gombau, on the other hand, looked distraught throughout the match. Prior to the match, he had assured that his players would overcome the concern of the drying goals up front but it was not to happen.

“Yes, it’s a disappointing result tonight. It is not the result that we expect. In the first half I think NorthEast was better than us. In the second half I think we started strong and we had our moments in the game. After that the two mistakes we made, we conceded two goals. This league is a short league and it only has 18 games and one-third of the league is gone. We haven’t started well. We need to work hard, we need to focus, and we need to try and do better in the next games.”