Kolkata, Real Kashmir coach David Robertson on Sunday said his side are not thinking of winning the I-League yet but have met their first goal of avoiding relegation after they stunned former champions Mohun Bagan here.
The I-League debutants rode a brace by Mason Robertson — the coach’s son — to stun the former champions 2-1 and climb to the second place on the points table behind surprise league leaders Chennai City FC.
“It will be a bit premature to say that we can win now. my first aim was to to avoid relegation. Today I can say we have enough points to stay up. Who know what will happen. It’s a long way to go,” said the 50-year-old Robertson after the game which forced his opposite number Sankarlal Chakraborty to resign.
With their sixth win from 11 matches, Real Kashmir have closed in on leaders Chennai City reducing the deficit to three points.
On Mohun Bagan’s performance, the coach said: “They pass balls quick, we play quick in the air. We didn’t want to be chasing around. Today’s game could have gone either way. it’s not that we dominitated through out.”
“Obviously Mohun Bagan have not got results. We knew if we played deep down we could get something from the game. It was just fantastic. It was certainly unexpected. We held on and got the three points which was very very important,” he added.
Real Kashmir will next face former champions Aizawl FC before taking on Shillong Lajong in successive away fixtures.
Talking about his son’s performance, the coach said he is always under pressure thinking whether he would fit in here or not.
The centre back has so far scored four goals in 10 matches.
“There’s more pressure on me because he’s my son. He fits in here. I always had doubts that whether he could play at this level and fit in. He has to play 10 times better than any other player to stay in the team. I don’t want to show too much favoritism,” the senior Robertson said.
The Scot said it’s the team was driven by the passionate fans of Kashmir.
“There’s never been I-League football in Kashmir. It’s always special for the people of Kashmir. When we play home game, we have 15,000 passionate fans following us. Probably 90 per cent of the game is our passion. It comes from the support,” he remarked.
