Poised Atletico de Kolkata to take on FC Pune City
Atletico de kolkata and FC Pune City lock horns at the Shree Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex Stadium in Pune, in what could be a battle for the top of the leader-board. In the duel between the contenders, Atletico appears to hold enough firepower to overcome the hosts comfortably.
Atletico de Kolkata (Atletico) is the only team left undefeated in ISL 2015, with seven points from three games and the Bengal Tigers will look to fortify their place at the top of the table when they visit Pune for their fourth match of the season.
Atletico have been riding on the attacking performances of Izumi Arata and Iain Hume, whose agility and skills have gotten them across the line so far. Javi Lara, the central cog of Atletico’s attacking midfield, already has an assist and a goalin three games, and has been a constant threat from set-pieces. The spaniard’s vision makes him capable of unlocking opposition defenses in the blink of an eye. However, a possible concern for Atletico will be their defence, which has not kept a clean sheet and has leaked three of the four goals in the last ten minutes of play.
Atletico Coach Antonio Habas has been the pivotal force behind the team's continued successs. Not only did he lead Atletico to the championship last year, but he has also managed to seamlessly assimilate the new signings into the winning team for this season. The signing of Hume, in particular, has been a masterstroke as the striker continues to wreak havoc on opposing defences.
FC Pune City (Pune) is placed third with six points from three games, after they suffered a reverse against the Delhi Dynamos in the last game after two consecutive victories at home. This will be the fourth consecutive home game for Pune, and they will hope to finish it big against Atletico before they travel to Chennai on October 24 to play their first away game this season.
Pune Coach, David Platt has rotated his players well in the last three matches, and will look to continue the strategy despite the previous defeat. One draw-back of this policy will be that the players will struggle to familiarize with each other, and the stability that comes with a set line-up will be ruptured due to the various combinations. Still, in a short format like the ISL which is tightly scheduled, Coach Platt might very well be proved right as the tournament progresses and teams struggle to keep their players injury free.
FC Pune City team news
Manager Platt will be pleased to have Eugeneson Lyngdog, Baikash Jairu, Pritam Kotal and Jakichand Singh back after their national team duty. Adrian Mutu is still struggling with his fitness and may not start the game against Atletico. If Mutu does regain match-fitness, the English coach would have the option to start with both Mutu and Sanli in attack, but that might require a change in formation, which would be unlikely.
Atletico de Kolkata team news
Atletico will welcome back Arnab Mondal and Rino Anto who were away on international duty with India. The duo will strengthen Kolkata’s back line, and hopefully stop the concession of goals. Coach Platt will also have influential midfielder Ofentse Nato back with the squad. Baljit Sahni will see out the two game suspension for his head-butt on Gregory Arnolin tomorrow, and will not be available for selection.
Expected starting line-ups
What the managers said
Pune Coach Platt has stressed on the need to follow a rotation policy to keep his players injury free and unjaded before their games. Manager David Platt said, “When you lose, people will always turn back and question, should you have done this or that. Even I think that, but the be all and end all is we feel that we have a group of players that can all go out and perform and we will continue to look at games and proximity of games and continue to utilize and rotate the squad the best way we can.”
Previous meetings
7th November, 2014: Atletico de Kolkata 1( 84'- Fikru) – 3 FC Pune City( 35' Dudu, 55' Katsouranis, 89' Davide)
29th November, 2014: FC Pune City 1 ( 45' Katsouranis) – 1 Atletico de Kolkata( 11'Pody)
Prediction
FC Pune City 1 – 2 Atletico de Kolkata
Atletico’s attack has been firing on all cylinders thus far, with Hume leading from the forefront. On the other hand, Pune have not been impressive after their first game and struck lucky in their second game, winning courtesy of an own-goal, followed by a home loss to Delhi in the third. We think Atletico should have enough quality about themselves to see off Pune in the upcoming match.
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