Chennaiyin FC's assistant coach Vivek Nagul wasn't very pleased with his team's 1-0 away defeat against Delhi Dynamos here at the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium on Thursday and said that the better lost.
The visitors, who were the most successful team in the group stage of the Indian Super League (ISL) last season, suffered their second successive defeat of ISL-2 as the Roberto Carlos-coached Delhi bagged their first points with a narrow 1-0 win.
"By the time we settled in the match, Delhi scored and coming back after conceding is always difficult. We were trying too many things in the first half and that was a problem," Nagul said in his post-match media address.
The hosts got an early lead after Chennaiyin FC conceded in the 8th minute through a penalty that Anderson Chicao scored from for the home team. Two in two defeats means Chennai drop to the bottom of the table with zero points.
"In the second half we were very good and had we taken our chances, we could have won as well. They did not create too many chances. We played with three defenders in the second half and still dominated them - so the better team lost today," the assistant coach said with a touch of disappointment.
"[Coach] Marco Matterazi gave the players a pep talk and they really showed their character but we were unlucky not to score any goal," Nagul reckoned.
Delhi won a penalty in the eighth minute after Brazilian midfielder Dos Santos got away from two Chennaiyin players and pulled it back for Hans Mulder whose shot struck Manuele Blasi's outstretched hand in the box. The golden opportunity was then calmly converted by Chicao.
When asked about the penalty decision, the assistant coach was not impressed with the referee at all.
"The penalty was a dubious one. I don't want to talk about referees but from where I saw, it didn't look a penalty at all. They had a couple of players on the yellow card and the way they were fouling, on another day one of them could have been easily shown the second yellow," he added.
Meanwhile, the Delhi Dynamos coach Roberto Carlos shrugged off the dubious penalty remarks and said that he had no doubt that the referee made a correct decision.
"It was a penalty. I haven't seen [the replay] on TV but it looked the right decision. A penalty is a penalty," Carlos opined.
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