ISL Season 3: Onus on strikers as Delhi search for first home win

Delhi Dynamos and FC Pune City are currently sixth and seventh respectively, in the eight-team table.

Winless in their last four games and languishing in the bottom half of the points table, Delhi Dynamos will want to notch up a first victory at home when they face struggling FC Pune City in their ISL-3 match here on Thursday.

Delhi began the tournament with a bang by defeating holders Chennaiyin FC in Chennai but have been winless since then.

It is not that Delhi have been out of sorts, but they haven’t been able to put in that extra bit to get full points. After the Chennai win, they played consecutive draws against Kerala Blasters, NorthEast United and Mumbai FC.

The last two draws came at home and did not do much to enhance Delhi’s chances, even though the Mumbai game was a six-goal thriller. The Dynamos lost their last game to 10-man Atletico de Kolkata 0-1, failing to score from a penalty. That pushed them to sixth in the eight-team league table.

Delhi coach Gianluca Zambrotta has asked his strikers to start firing to get the campaign back on track. “In the last match (against ATK), we had opportunities to score but did not kill the match. We are able to create a lot of chances, that’s no problem for us. Unfortunately in the last match, there were some mistakes. Football is like this, sometimes it may appear cruel. It is important for us to think positively,” said Zambrotta on match eve.

Zambrotta can take heart from Delhi’s clean sheet results against FC Pune City since the start of the ISL.

Pune, on the other hand, have notched up just one win from five matches, losing twice and drawing twice. They are seventh in the table with just five points.

Pune coach Antonio Habas conceded that his players were failing to get the goals.