With Exactly A Week To Go Before The Blues Begin Their ISL Title-Defence, We Sat Down With Erik Paartalu Who Talked Us Through The Preparations, A Midfield Packed With Class And How Everyone Will Have To Fight For Their Positions This Season…

On the League being a week away from a start…

We’ve been training and it feels like normal again after a long wait for competitive action. But we can’t take anything for granted, because in football, anything can happen. It’s just about getting a shot down the ISL and hopefully we have a bit of freshness about us that we haven’t had last season (because of the AFC Cup).

On the new faces in the squad…

I think when we finished the last season, the question looming was how we would replace some of our players if we went on to lose them. But the club’s done a very good job in attracting the right sort of players. And you know, Manu, Ashique, Rapha and Eugene bring in experience but we also have a young one in Suresh. We have quite a few options now. I think this year, we’re going to have more have a 17-18 boys fighting for a place in the Starting XI. This competitiveness has definitely helped us in the preseason, because everyone’s vying for a place. There were times last season where you had the XI almost picked themselves, because we were playing so well. But also, we didn’t have that depth. And I think this year we have much better depth in the squad.

Playing alongside Rapha and a star-studded midfield…

Yeah, we’ve worked on a few different combinations in training. My role is pretty much the same and defined in that defensive midfield slot. And yes, you have to change your game a little bit, because of the characteristics of other players that play alongside you. Take Rapha for example, you want to get him the ball in the final third by playing a killer pass. You don’t want him running about mad trying to defend, given his attacking ability. But then in certain situations, it has to be an understanding for us to go for both attack and defence. I think he understands how things are at BFC where there’s a very big emphasis on the team. In Chennai, he’s probably been one of the superstar players and a lot was expected out of him. I think it’s going be good for him as well given the quality we have around him. So it’s exciting.

On contributing more goals from the midfield…

Yeah, it probably wasn’t enough last season to be honest. I think I scored a couple of goals and Dimas got another. But we need to be scoring three or four, maybe five in 18 games from the middle. That is a lot to ask for, but I think if you look at the season last year, when Miku got injured we had all players chipping in with goals. Honestly, even Sunil and Udanta took a hit because they had to sort of sacrifice their positions to try and score the goals. At the same time, set pieces is something we work on, and that’s a good option as well. But again, it’s the team’s responsibility and with the likes of Manu up front, we must be able to create chances for everyone.