Mumbai City FC did not have the best outing in their AFC Champions League debut against Al Shabab FC as the Saudi outfit defeated them 3-0 with Ever Banega scoring a brace. Mumbai City had their chances but they were very few. But head Coach Des Buckingham demands more cutting edge upfront from his strikers as his team looks to take on Iraqi Premier League outfit Al-Quwa Al-Jawiya on Monday at the King Fahd International Stadium, in Riyadh.
Des Buckingham shared how the team has been preparing for these group stages matches and are looking forward to every challenge that will come their way. However, he also complained over the short turnaround between matches as it does not allow his players to recuperate from the previous clash.
“It’s less than 24 hours since the last game and we’re still less than 48 hours until we kick off again. So it’s a, it’s a short turnaround, but one we’ve been preparing for, for the last three or four weeks. And the one we’re looking forward to, we’re going to come up against another good side. They picked up a fantastic result last night. But it’s a challenge that we’re ready for,” Buckingham said at the pre-match press conference.
Speaking on the Iraqi outfit’s performances the English tactician was full of praises as he highlights how consistent Al Quwa AL Juwaiya has been over the years in their domestic leagues. Buckingham even went to the stadium to watch their opponents play against AL Jazira and the Iraqi outfit won the match 2-1. He felt it was a good game between two good teams and they have to be mindful of the quality that they will be up against.
“I thought it was a good game last night between the two teams (Al-Quwa Al-Jawiya) and it showed the qualities that they certainly have that we need to be mindful of, but again also gives us an idea as to how we want to set up.
And like I said, it’s about us adding that final third (quality) to our game plan to make sure that the good play that we have, we can try again,” Buckingham added.
Lastly, the young English tactician credited his players for being brave despite the last match being their first encounter at this level. I spoke last night about how proud I was of our players. It was the first experience of the players in this level of competition and the way that they went about being brave, trying to play a certain way,” he answered.
He feels that the Islanders had good possession and were good in buildups from the defence. He feels that they need to take that buildup to th final third and create more opportunities. The Englishman was not happy with the final output from his strikers in the last game.
“I felt we got a good possession against a very good team. I felt we created good build-up from the back, from the goalkeeper, through the midfield. The one learning for us is now we need to take that into the final third to create opportunities and chances on the opposition goal, because we found ourselves in really good positions, but just couldn’t quite get the output that we wanted, which Al-Shabab certainly did. So that’s something that we’ll take,” the Mumbai City boss signed off.
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