Mahindra United coach Derrick Pereira would be the first person to admit that his team has not set the stands alight in their journey to the final of the 120th edition of Osian’s Durand Cup.

With only one goal in three matches, that too a penalty conversion, to beat Border Security Force in the last 16, the Mumbai outfit has had to rely on their prowess in tie-breakers to make it to the title round where they face in-form Churchill Brothers at the Ambedkar Stadium on Wednesday.

Mahindra will also have a big hole when they line up for the title decider as India international N P Pradeep is out with a hamstring injury while Gautam Debnath has not recovered from a blow to the head sustained against Sporting Clube-de-Goa in the quarters.

“Losing Pradeep is a big setback for us as he is the main main player for us in defence,” Pereira said.

Sunil Kumar and Dharmaraj Ravanan will man the back-line and would be in charge of the unenviable task of curbing the threat of Churchill’s Nigerian striker Odafe Onyeka Okolie, who has 10 goals in three matches so far.

“We play as 11 men and I will not put any extra emphasis on one player as it is a team game. But we do need to be careful about Okolie as he is in great form,” Pereira said.

With players such as Steven Dias, Krishnan Ajayan, Manjit Singh and custodians Sandip Nandy and Subhashish Roychowdhury, the coach has a lot of talent at his disposal to land a third Durand title.

In contrast, Churchill seems to be firing on all cylinders. They brushed aside HASC and Central Railways but were severely tested by Air India in the semifinal where they had to come back from a deficit twice to prevail 3-2 with Okolie supplying the winner.