Goal.com caught up A. Sreedharan, coach of Viva Kerala on the back of his side's defeat to Mohun Bagan in their encounter in Kolkata. He reckons it is the lack of experience which costs his team dear.
Having lost their first two games, Viva Kerala have a lot of ground to make up. Goal.com caught up with A. Sreedharan, the coach of Viva Kerala, for a quick word post his side’s defeat to Mohun Bagan in Kolkata.
Sreedharan, though not upbeat with the side’s performance, was ready to acknowledge the difference in quality his side have encountered. The step up into the country’s major league is by no stretch of imagination an easy task, according to him. He said, “We have played well, but not been able to get the right result. There is no doubt that the boys put in enough effort but we must step up our own quality of play.”
Viva Kerala lost to Mohun Bagan who themselves have had a terrible start to the season. But Bagan came up with the goods at the right time and managed to earn a very important victory. Sreedharan though acknowledged Bagan’s superior quality, but said they shouldn’t have conceded the goals in the way they did. He added, “I feel our goalkeeper was not up to the mark in dealing with the goals. He must do better in similar situations.”
He also blamed the lack of a good pre season for not having a good start to the league. “The fact that my team is very inexperienced costs us results. Against a team like Mohun Bagan, which has a lot of experienced players in the side, it is essential to have steady heads”, he said.
On the subject of playing on an artificial pitch for the first time, he stressed onto the fact that as it is same for both sides it is not an issue with him. “The pitch was okay. And that is not something which affects my match analysis”, he said, matter-of-factly.
Sreedharan concluded by saying that the key to their season is going to be their ability to gather points at home. “We must look at home games and make sure we do well in them”, he admitted.
Viva Kerala went into the match without their captain MP Sakeer, who had caught flu and had flown back to Kochi before the match. It certainly did not help their cause but the skipper on the night Sirajuddin C was in a defiant mood and explained that even though they haven’t hit the ground running, Viva were hoping to get on the track and didn’t want to make any excuses.
The stand-in skipper said, “We have lost games but that is down to our performance. We do not want to use any excuse to cover explain losses.”
Viva Kerala take on Chirag United on the 23rd of October in their next encounter. They will be hoping to make most of their first home fixture to break their season’s duck and get things on track.
From the archive. First published on footballkerala.com on Wednesday 14 October 2009, restored from the site's 2012 database. Text as originally published.
Comments · 1
A bad worksman blames his tools. While everybody acknowledges sloppy activity in the transfer market (no big signings, poor player choice and failure to retain players), lack of any pre-season preparation, etc., what happened on match day against MB was disastrous. Which coach would start with an ultra-defensive 4-5-1 when playing a battered MB (who were without most of their key players)? You cant expect to win matches with 5 defenders and 3 defensive midfielders (and playing out of position)!!