Debutants Hyderabad FC have a long list of injured players…
Hyderabad FC faced their second defeat on the trot on Tuesday, going down 3-1 against Jamshedpur FC after a 5-0 drubbing at the hands of ATK in their opener.
With players like Rafa Lopez, Giles Barnes, Bobo and Nestor Gordillo unavailable for selection, Hyderabad coach Phil Brown has pointed out a lack of squad depth as one of the main reasons for the poor start to the season.
“I think there’s a lot to do with players being available. I’ve got a lot of big players in the stands. That hurts any coach in any country. I think I have got a group of Indian players that really do work as asked to. They run through brick walls. They’ll endeavour to play the right kind of football but when you’re short of that kind of quality, that hurts. So you get to the final third on occasions and then you don’t produce that final pass, that final shot, that final effort on goal,” Brown voiced his concerns.
The former Hull City coach also lamented that he had no suitable replacement for Sahil Panwar after the left-back picked an injury following a clash with Sergio Castel.
“When Sahil Panwar goes down to an injury just after half time, I’m bringing in a young boy to replace him. That’s when I would like to bring in someone as good as Sahil if not better and I haven’t got that strength in depth at the moment.”
Brown would hence welcome the international break in the second week of November, by the end of which he expects to have a full-strength squad at his disposal.
“After a couple of games, we have an international break. By the fifth game, I’m hoping that all of my squad will be fit. And then, I believe, we will be able to give a good account of ourselves. At the moment, we are trying very hard to compete and I think we did in the first half. I thought we had a strong foothold in the game even at one-nil down. The half-time team talk was a lot easier. We had confidence going into the second half.”
Robin Singh is one player who is yet to find his form at Hyderabad but the coach feels that it is more about the lack of support that would get the best out of the former East Bengal forward.
“The Robin Singh that we had last year if you look at the supply that we had at the end of last season when I joined Pune (now Hyderabad FC) you had Iain Hume and Marcelinho alongside him.”
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