Aircraftmen look to stay afloat

HASC will have to put aside off-field problems as they take on Air India

HASC, who were sitting pretty in the middle of the table a few weeks ago, now find themselves in the relegation dogfight after going winless in their last five matches and there also has been the case of an untimely distraction with the Bangalore outfit finding themselves in a tangle earlier this week with Asian Football Federation over club licensing.

However, they received a crumb of consolation with the AFC giving them a deadline of a little over a year to fulfill all criteria required to form an I-League club.

Air India, on the other hand, are buoyed after their remarkable 1-0 victory over League leaders Salgaocar and they know a win on Sunday will take them level with the Bangalore side.

HASC have 20 points from 21 matches while Air India are on 17 points from an equal number of matches.

‘Do-or-die battle’

“It is a do-or-die battle for us tomorrow,” HASC manager, M Muralidharan acknowledged during his team’s training session on Saturday morning. “But we have our defenders back and a fully fit side at our disposal, so we are pretty confident of coming out on top,” he added.

HASC will indeed welcome back Nepalese Rohit Chand, who missed the last couple of matches due to his national commitments, and the hosts will have the full quartet of Chand, Joseph Femi, Liliyan Kennath and Sreekanth manning the defence with the ever-impressive R Pramod between the sticks.

The worry, though, for HASC throughout the campaign has been scoring goals with no player having found the back of the net more than twice so far.

In a reshuffling of the pack, striker RC Prakash is expected to start as a central midfielder for the first time this season and will partner captain J Murali, who returns from a suspension.

Youngsters Malemngamba Meitei and Ankit Sharma will start on the wings with Xavier Vijay Kumar and the goal-shy A Hamza upfront.

“We are going with RC in the midfield because he has good vision and can provide telling passes. So, we hope this gamble pays off for us,” Muralidharan said.

At the other end, Air India have improved under new coach Santhosh Kashyap after languishing in the bottom of the table for much of the season and now find themselves with a realistic shot of surviving considering the current form.

“I am really looking forward to tomorrow’s match. HASC are a really good side who pass the ball well and we need to be careful. But we are really confident after beating Salgaocar and will go into the match looking for maximum points,” Kashyap said.