ATK’s Roy Krishna cancelled Serge Kevyn’s injury-time goal in the dying minute as Mumbai City FC had to settle for yet another draw in four days. A game, extensively marred by questionable refereeing decisions, had the home team breaking the deadlock after Edu Garcia’s ball found Michael Soosairaj on the left and the 24-year-old slotted home with a neat finish.

Mumbai responded soon after the hour’s mark when centre-back Pratik Chaudhari headed home through Mohamed Larbi’s corner. With the game now into the added minutes, substitute Kevyn, who earlier missed a glorious opportunity, gave his team a valuable lead through a simple tap-in, but Mumbai’s celebration was cut short in the final minute when Krishna’s put his shot past Amrinder Singh to keep his team’s perfect home record intact.

Not exactly what Mumbai City FC wanted out of the fixture, but the fact remains that they are still unbeaten away from home this season (W1 D3). Loads of drama, plenty of action and a lot to about; here’s what went wrong for the away team.

Read | How Mumbai City FC midfielders kept NorthEast United on toe

Not clinical in the final third

Manager Jorge Costa went with an unchanged XI which squared off against NorthEast United on Wednesday, with the likes of Amine Chermiti, Diego Carlos and Modou Sougou leading the line. And despite being on the front foot in the initial stage, the trio failed to have any sort of impact whatsoever.

Carlos, on his part, was arguably the most threatening of the three, but the end result was always lacking. By the stroke of half-time, Mumbai didn’t have even a single shot on target despite enjoying a majority of possession.

Sougou, meanwhile, had plenty of opportunities at hand but was giving away possession rather cheaply. Mumbai, in fact, had only two shots on target in the entire game and luckily scored with both. Chermiti, who scored a brace against NorthEast United, was left isolated and failed to register a single attempt on goal. Lack of service meant he had the least touches (22) in the game amongst his teammates and played a joint-lowest 18 passes throughout.

It’s not that Mumbai weren’t creating anything from open play. Sougou, in fact, found Larbi just in front of the goal, but the Tunisian failed to make most of the opportunity. Kevyn too found himself at the receiving end of a Paulo Machado’s ball, but the 25-year-old fired his shot wide.

Both Machado and Larbi together created five goal-scoring chances, but the attack failed to live up to the billing.

Defence lacked structure

ATK, who had scored most goals at home (8) and had conceded just once (prior to the game) this season, were always going to be a threat going forward. Mumbai, on the other hand, arrived on the back of a lacklustre defensive record, having conceded second-highest goals this season. So it was not really surprising to see the Islanders playing a rather robust game throughout.

In order to go rocky though, Mumbai City FC lacked a proper structure at the back and even Rowllin Borges, who had an outstanding game against NorthEast, failed to provide anything positive.

The centre-backs, apart from lacking proper communication, left a lot of gap between, while the full-backs were substandard in closing the lines and picking up their markers.

ATK, meanwhile, moved gears as soon as Soosairaj put them ahead. Pressing high up the ground, they forced Mumbai’s defence into making silly errors, and the likes of Souvik Chakrabarti and Subhasish Bose easily fell into the trap. The duo eventually had to commit their bodies in line, but the timing of their challenges was way off.

Feature image courtesy: Twitter / IndSuperLeague

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