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Kingfisher East Bengal look to consolidate their position at the top of the table when they take on lowly placed HAL at the Yuva Bharati Krinangan on Saturday (January 21). East Bengal stay on 30 points from 15 matches while HAL languish at the bottom of the table with just 3 points from same number of matches.
The last time the two teams met, East Bengal won 8-1.
When asked whether it would be a relatively easy match, East Begnal Coach Trevor Morgan begged to differ. “No team in the I-League is an easy opponent and we would be missing several players due to injury,” he lamented.
The injury list looks long with Nirmal Chettri, Robin Singh, Naoba Singh, Robert Lalthwama, Gurvinder Singh and Ravinder Singh ruled out for the match.
Morgan is set to hand Sunil Kumar his I-League debut alongside Uga Okpara. It looks like East Bengal will play Tolgay Ozbey as the lone striker upfront with comeback man Edmilson Marques to start from the bench.
Morgan added: “At present, there are 7 teams vying for the title and hence every match is important for us.”
Meanwhile, HAL had a light practice session ahead of the crucial clash. On the surface, they have an uphill task. But as Morgan insisted, it’s not right to “make any prediction.”
The kick-off is at 2pm.
