ISL 2020-21 | We were chasing the game once we gave away the penalty, regrets Stuart Baxter
Odisha FC coach Stuart Baxter feels that they were chasing the game after conceding the goal giving away the penalty en-route to their 0-1 defeat against Hyderabad FC. Most of the players were sloppy throughout the evening, while Marcelinho was substituted in the 53rd minute after he was struggling.
Odisha FC was aiming for a fresh start with a bunch of fresh faces in their ranks and an experienced coach overseeing them. But, their lacklustre display in the opening game against Hyderabad FC might have been the result of lack of a proper pre-season, with most of the players having a sloppy evening in Goa. Coach Stuart Baxter also feels that his players were chasing the game once they gave away the penalty, which allowed frustration to creep in and eventually failed to get the equalizer.
"I don't think I'm different from any of the coaches, we would like more time with the players. I think the fact that we were chasing the game once we gave away the penalty, the frustration that crept in that resulted in a few ill-timed challenges, that's probably the reason," said Stuart Baxter, after Monday’s game.
Marcelinho, who was playing against his former side, looked ill-at-ease in his position, while Stuart Baxter had to substitute him early on in the second half. When asked regarding the decision to play him only 53 minutes in the match, the coach explained that he had other plans and wanted to increase the momentum of the game towards the ending stages.
"Well we had an idea to play Marcelinho as a No.10, but we didn't see him on the ball and if you don't see Marcelinho on the ball then you're not going to see him making a tackle and running all over the field. So I thought that we should go more direct. We had 10-15 minutes to increase our momentum a little bit. I think the players worked very hard, otherwise, we wouldn't have been in the game till the last minute," added the manager.
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