East Bengal ease past Chirag

Air India blank Pailan Arrows

Penn Orgi and Tolgay Ozbey scored a goal piece as East Bengal defeated Chirag United Kerala 2-0 in the 11th round of the I League match here at the Jawaharlal Nehru International stadium on Friday.

After a goalless first half, Orgi put the visitors ahead in the 51st minute before Ozbey wrapped up victory by stroking home in injury time. With this win East Bengal climbed up to second spot with 23 points and are just a point away from leaders Dempo.
At the Balewadi Sports Complex in Pune, two second-half goals helped Air India beat Palian Arrows 2-0 for their third consecutive win.

After an unimpressive first half, Air India picked up pace after the change of ends and fired two goals in a space of eight minutes to earn full points that helped the Mumbai side climb one place above to sixth with 19 points, one better that Pune FC. Pailan stay on six points from 11 matches.

Arrows did make some promising moves at the beginning of the second half, but their pace reduced once the game wore on. Their best chance came when a fantastic cross from Jibon Singh saw striker Holicharan Narzary in the clear but the latter headed wide.
Air India slowly regrouped. First, Muhammed Shafi set himself up at the top of the box but his powerful grounder zipped wide off left post. Sandesh Gadkari put the hosts ahead in the 62nd minute, guiding home a Colin Abranches cross.

Abranches was instrumental in Air India’s second goal too as his cross was successfully converted by Ezeh Nna Henry in the 70th minute without much ado.

Earlier, Air India striker Manandeep Singh squandered two chances in a space of five minutes something which Air India were lucky not to rue at the end. Arrows created a slew of chances, epsecially their midfiled showed a lot of alacrity. But their marksmen were not up to the mark.

After snatching the ball from Gurtej Singh, Manandeep found himself in the clear with just Naveen Kumar goalkeeper to beat but he shot wide.

Five minutes later, fellow striker Bijoy Basfore set up Manandeep in the box, but his left-footer went out.

For Arrows, Avinaba Bag kept the right wing alive with his fine runs, but his shots in the middle were too weak for the strikers to extract something from them.

This was Air India third successive win after having defeated table-topper’s Dempo and Sporting Clube de Goa in their two previous games in Goa.