Owen Coyle admits FC Goa deserved to win after defeat in Goa

Chennaiyin FC head coach Owen Coyle admitted FC Goa deserved to win after their 0-2 loss at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, Goa in the ongoing Indian Super League 2024-25 on Saturday.

Spaniard Iker Guarrotxena scored in the 11th minute for the hosts whereas Aakash Sangwan scored after 15 minutes to double the team’s lead.

The Marina Machans had only 41.6% possession and could not even take a solitary shot on target.

“In the first half, it’s nowhere near good enough. FC Goa are a good side, with us contributing to gifting them goals (which made things easier), which we did. The first goal, obviously, was a comfortable take… I found ourselves one down, and even the second goal was so avoidable,” Coyle said during the post-match press conference.

“So that gave us obviously a mountain to climb, try to change it at half-time, freshen things up. Obviously, much better in the second half, but it was far too much to do at that point…,” he added.

“I think that’s a fair comment to say that we certainly gifted it (the goals), and yeah, there’s no doubt that FC Goa deserved to win the game. For us, it was disappointing for sure because we came into the game having played well in the last game against Mohun Bagan SG. We should have won the previous two games. So yeah, it’s disappointing for sure,” Coyle continued further.

Chennaiyin FC is in 10th place in the standings with 18 points after 18 games. With six games still to go, Coyle is hopeful of ending the league stage on a high.

“We have six games now, four at home and two away. As we did last year, (we) can turn that. (But) we certainly have to perform better than we did in the first half tonight, but we know these games are winnable for our best.

“So, we need to refresh, take the feeling, which is not particularly nice for everybody at the football club, and look to pick ourselves up and look to win a home game and a derby game against Kerala Blasters FC,” Coyle commented.

Chennaiyin FC will next take on Kerala Blasters FC at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, Chennai on Thursday.