Mohun Bagan coach Jose Molina was visibly happy after his team returned to winning ways with a thumping victory over Kolkata rivals Mohammedan Sporting at the Salt Lake Stadium on Saturday.
After being humbled 0-3 by Bengaluru FC in an away clash, the Mariners delivered a clinical performance, thrashing Mohammedan Sporting by an identical margin.
Jamie Maclaren, Subashish Bose, and Greg Stewart found the back of the net in the first half as Mohun Bagan collected three points and rose to the fourth spot on the ISL 2024-25 standings.
With this win, Mohun Bagan also registered their first clean sheet in the season.
Happy with the performance of his players, Molina, who was under pressure to deliver after a rather poor start to the season, said all the players contributed to the win.
“The whole team played really well. All the players made a great effort. They put great pressure, in defence we recovered the ball faster. Then, we kept the ball and moved it with good speed and tried to look forward. We scored three goals, we could’ve scored more. I think it was a great match for everybody,” Molina said at the post-match press conference.
Mohun Bagan, playing in a 4-4-1-1 shape, pressed hard from the beginning and cut down Mohammedan Sporting’s efforts to surge. In the match, Mohammedan Sporting could put only one shot on target but were denied by Vishal Kaith.
‘Mohun Bagan showed true level of ISL’: Chernyshov
Meanwhile, Mohammedan Sporting coach, Andrey Chernyshov, heaped praise on Mohun Bagan.
“Today, Mohun Bagan showed (us) the true level of ISL. They played very well and have many quality players. I can’t say that my team was very bad. We tried something, we fought but there was a big difference in quality between them and us,” he said.
Mohun Bagan, however, could have scored more goals had they not missed chances.
Reflecting on those missed chances, Molina said, “The point is to have the chances to score. We had the chances because we played really well and sometimes you have the success and sometimes you don’t have so much success. The point is we played really well. But we still can improve and we have to try to improve what we can and try to be a better team.”
Talking about Mohammedan Sporting’s lacklustre performance, Chernyshov said, “This can happen in football especially when you play against a strong team like Mohun Bagan, we have to be very good in our physical condition. Today we were not. Maybe we were tired after these three games. We have to accept that the opponent was very good today. We cannot do anything about it.”