Kunhikrishnan fired by Chirag Kerala
Chirag United Kerala have reportedly sacked their coach KP Kunhikrishnan today afternoon, following the team’s dismal performance in the Federation Cup 2011 at Kolkata. The owners of the club were expecting a good performance from the Kerala club in the tournament, but were unhappy about how the things turned out for them as they crashed out by losing all three matches.
Now, the management is considering to appoint formed Sri Lankan international defender Pakir Ali as the team’s head coach. Ali is an AFC A license holder and has coached teams like Sheikh Jamal KC of Bangladesh. His club career was with Abahani Limited in Dhaka where he won several titles with the club. The new coach is expected to take charge of the team by October 6, 2011.
Kunhikrishnan had joined Viva Kerala at the beginning of the 2010-11 season replacing the long standing AM Sreedharan at the team’s helm. He guided the club to a ninth place finish in the I-League 2010-11 and saved the team from relegation.
Chirag United Kerala has also released their Brazilian striker Alex Carioka and is searching for a better foreign player to fill the void. Alex, who joined the team before the Federation Cup was largely a flop in the group matches of the tournament. Earlier Subrata Bhattacharya, the team’s Technical Director, had expressed his concerns over the lack of quality of the foreigners who were added to the roster this season.
October 2nd, 2011 at 10:30 am
Kunjikrishnan, the coach, was merely a ’scapegoat’ of the team’s dismal performance. Inafact, the poor performance was due to lack of practice matches and late arrival of foreign players. Brazilian striker was major flop and this attributed majorly to the team’s failure.
Just to remind, Kunjikrishnan was instrumental in retaining the team in ileague in last season with their limited resources. Team strength is even worse than last year with 7 left from the playing 11.
New coach also would be scapegoat unless and untill quality foreign players are acquired.
October 2nd, 2011 at 9:10 pm
Its a normal move by any Kolkata based management. It happened earlier with Mohan Bagan and East Bengal.There is no point in supporting this team, as it is going to move to Kolkata from next season.
October 12th, 2011 at 9:37 pm
it rather unfortunate that our dear coach should be used as the scapegoat but i wish to tell Him that it was not any fault of His that the team fared that bad in the tourney but from my point of view the management did not do well to ensemble all the squad b4 the tourney and it my hope that it will do well to call up all players b4 the i-league starts. Player like Charles , who made a tremendous sparkle last year was nd is still not in India yet for the league. HOW DO U EXPECT OUR TEAM TO DO ? when the squad is set. Until we are able to get all hands on board the wheel can not move at the speed we all expect .
October 15th, 2011 at 2:30 pm
Is there any point in commenting it as “our” team? Kerala may need a new team next year in I league