NEROCA coach unhappy with referee

Imphal: Showing confidence in the face of uncertainty over their chances of winning the I-League from here, NEROCA FC coach Gift Raikhan was left ruing poor quality of refereeing in the post-match press conference on Sunday.
Asked to comment on the way they lost the match with poor defending, Raikhan said, “Our defence was not up to the mark and Gouramangi was injured very early in the game.I had to replace him and before we settled down they scored. But you know, I’m not blaming the referee for the loss but the referee was poor in decision making. I am not someone who blames the referee, I support them unlike many other coaches. But today I am blaming the referee. The match was not played in a balanced way. We played well, match was entertaining. Mohun Bagan played well, too, congratulations to them. We’re still on top and anything can happen. We can lose the last match, win it, other teams can lose three matches, so still a lot of things are left.”
Raikhan also said that the overall the quality of refereeing is not up to the mark in I-League. “You see in a lot of matches there’s no foul for handball. Offsides, dangerous challenges are overlooked, fouls are given for minor tackles. I don’t know when the standard of refereeing will be good here. Sadly, if I blame the referee then I’m a bad coach,” smiled Raikhan.
Asked about the second and third goal they conceded, where there was some controversy involved, Raikhan explained, “I can’t say properly whether it was offside or not, because I couldn’t see the live telecast. But from the way the referee and linesman behaved it looked like it (third goal) was offside. When a goal is scored referee points towards the centre but here the referee showed the goalmouth. The linesman also pointed his flag towards the goal not towards the half line. So there was some confusion at least, which was visible in their action.”
However, his Mohun Bagan counterpart was happy as the result helped him restore some prestige and consolidate their chances of finishing in top four.
“Referees are human beings, they can make mistakes and this was a pressure match. I am happy with the way my boys played today. They showed great team spirit, good attitude to come back twice and that reflected in the way we scored the third (goal) in the first-half stoppage time,” said Bagan coach Sankarlal Chakraborty.
Asked about the poor defending on display, Chakraborty said, “It’s true that there were some defensive lapses in the first half but we returned a better side in the second half and stopped them from getting the equalizer. Players make mistakes in the match but they need to recover as a team, and we did that today.”
The green and maroon coach also defended his captain Kingshuk Debnath’s poor defending, saying, “Kingshuk came back into the side after four matches (his last match was against East Bengal on January 21), so there was some rustiness in his game early on. I don’t blame him, he recovered well later in the match.”
He praised NEROCA FC scorer Subhash Singh, who was the Hero of the Match, saying, “He is a very good player and was fantastic today. He was with us a couple of years back (on loan from Mumbai City) before we parted ways as he suffered an injury.”