ISL 2017: "Referee's decisions are hurting us too much," says Mumbai City FC coach Alexandre Guimaraes
Robin Singh scored the only goal of the night in what was an extremely open match and in doing so, he handed Mumbai City FC their third loss of the ISL 2017 campaign on Sunday. However, the game had its fair share of controversy.
In the final minutes of the game, ATK's Shankar Sampingiraj lunged into Everton Santos inside the penalty box. ATK's appeals for a penalty were strong but the referee immediately turned them down and continued with the game.
Mumbai City coach Alexandre Guimaraes, who is usually politically correct, refused to mince his words after the game. The Costa Rican suggested that he is fed up with the decisions that keep going against his team this season.
"Yes, of course it was a penalty. The guy tackled from behind. It's very difficult, we have been through different games and different decisions that are hurting us too much. We hope that we can change this," he said.
"Ask the players, they have to be in that pressure situation. On our home ground, the other teams are putting too much pressure on the referee and the fourth official. Then it's up to them (referees) to make a decision and they just..," the coach was a tad hesitant to complete his sentence.
Mumbai were too defensive in the first half but changed gears in the second. This has been a trend of late. Guimaraes' men seem to take a tad too long to get into their stride and this came back to hurt them tonight. Mumbai left it too late in their attempt to launch a comeback but the coach reckons they tried their best to open the floodgates.
"It came down to the little details. In the second half, we played better than them, we tried but there was a wall in their half and Debjit made two or three very good saves," he signed off.