I-League: Petre Gigiu - Many players are of the Goa league level in Churchill Brother

The Churchill Brothers' manager expressed his disappointment at the lack of quality of players at his disposal...

Petre Gigiu did not mince words to make his feelings known about the quality of players in his squad after Churchill Brothers were held to a 1-1 draw by Mohun Bagan in an I-League encounter in Goa on Saturday.

The Goan side have lost steam in the title race after managing to pick up only two points in their last three matches and the Romanian coach feels that his squad is not well equiped to fight at the highest level.

"Maybe in selection (we made a mistake). We didn't bring more players from the I-League. Many players are only of the Goa league level. Our group (squad) is not (strong) enough to play all games in the league. The injuries we have suffered are all from contact with opponents.

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"The fight is very strong (in the I-League). I didn't know that. Maybe we thought with 15 players we can make do but you must have all players of I-League quality. It's already late. The morale has already dropped after the NEROCA loss and after that the (Shillong) Lajong defeat. I have spoken with my players that now we have nothing to lose, we must play good to make yourself proud," stated the tactician.

Churchill were forced to make two substitutions within the first 30 mins as Richard Costa and Hussein Eldor could not continue after getting injured.

"We have problems with injuries as (Nallappan) Mohanraj didn't play. (Hussein) Eldor, Wayne (Vaz), (Dawda) Ceesay and Richard (Costa) are all injured. We have a very difficult task in the final games," said Gigiu.

But the 65-year old coach is not ready to give up hopes of a comeback and hopes to put the best foot forward against East Bengal.

"We will try now to win against East Bengal. We will not put our hands down. It's very difficult. We must see the situation. At this moment we have 30 points, Chennai (City FC) have 33 with a game in hand, (Real) Kashmir 32, East Bengal 28 and a few games to go. It can go any way.

"Our team has value. If this team remains the same and include some more quality players, next season we will be very good," signed off Gigiu.