East Bengal FC, the century-old club and one of the most glamorous and successful teams in Indian football, finished ninth in this season’s ISL, thus failing to qualify for the Super Six. The red-and-gold brigade lost 13 of their 20 matches and finished with 19 points.
While there were occasional flashes of brilliance, the season was largely disappointing for the Kolkata club and their coach Stephen Constantine will have to shoulder some responsibility. There were some issue with regard to the formation of the team and finding the sponsor before the start of the season, but we will focus on a couple of technical problems East Bengal faced this season:
The coach’s rigidity as regards the formation:
Throughout the season, Constantine opted to play with a 4-4-2 formation. While that formation can be alright for teams with attacking tendencies and ability to dominate possession, for a defensive-minded team like East Bengal it proved to be a luxury to have two strikers upfront.
The shortcomings were clear in the final match of the season that saw East Bengal lose to ATK Mohun Bagan 0-2. Constantine’s stubbornness meant that he kept playing striker Jake Jarvis throughout the entire course of the match even as the latter barely touched the ball inside the opposition penalty box.
East Bengal clearly needed an additional man in the midfield and the likes of Jordan O’Doherty and Souvik Chakraborty could have replaced Jarvis. However, Constantine thought otherwise and the result was an eventual surrender to their arch-rivals as the latter increased the intensity of their attacks in the second half.
The situation demanded East Bengal to switch to a 4-5-1 with only Cleiton Silva upfront, but their coach refused to adjust his strategy.
Players not utilized in their proper positions:
While it is true that East Bengal missed out on a lot of players because of their internal issues at the start of the season, it can also not be denied that some of the players were not used in their proper positions. Alex Lima, probably their most creative player, was often used as a defensive midfielder.
Lima’s ability to play through passes was thus not utilized properly. Moreover, Charalambos Kyriakou’s attacking instincts were also curbed to play him as a centre-back. It was clear that the Cypriot prefers to venture forward and might be a bit too slow to play as a centre-back.
Jarvis could have been dropped to the bench to play Ivan Gonzales as the centre-back, with either Kyriakou or O’Doherty as the defensive midfielder. It was true that Gonzales committed a few mistakes when he was given a chance to start, but Kyriakou replacing him was hardly the solution. Thus, Constantine’s decisions meant that East Bengal remained vulnerable in their defense even after almost always playing off a low block and their fullbacks hardly overlapping.
It remains to be seen whether the Brit gets an extension to the next season, but he will have to address those issues urgently.
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