Mohun Bagan SG run past nine-man Bengaluru FC

Kolkata: Hugo Boumous’s second-half goal was enough for Mohun Bagan SG to get the better of nine-man Bengaluru FC 1-0 in their ISL match at the Salt Lake Stadium on Wednesday.Boumous kept his cool to beat BFC goalkeeper Gurpreet Singh Sandhu with a well-controlled finish in the 68th minute to seal the deal.Six months ago in Margao during the ISL-9 final, Bengaluru FC had managed to come back into the contest before going down to Juan Ferrando’s champions in the penalty shootout. But here, Simon Grayson’s visitors faced a Herculean job after being reduced to nine men soon after conceding the goal. They lost Suresh Wangjam to double booking in the 75th minute and then Naorem Roshan Singh in the 90th after he received a straight red for denying Petratos a goal-scoring chance.Hours before the match, the home team announced that fans would be allowed to enter the stadium with drums and megaphones. And 29000-odd supporters returned home happy to see their team maintain the drumbeat of early ascendancy.This was the second successive win for Ferrando’s reigning champions while BFC suffered back-to-back defeats.Mohun Bagan’s 3-5-2 formation allowed their wingers, especially Manvir Singh and Liston Colaco, to be at the heart of most of their attacks. However, the visitors countered it with a disciplined defensive organization which hardly allowed the likes of Dimitri Petratos and Jason Cummings any space to manoeuvre in and around the box.Yet, BFC came calling early on, with Roshan Singh blasting over the bar after swooping on a loose ball and Rohit Kumar’s feeble attempt from inside the box drawing a goalline save from Anirudh Thapa.Thus relieved, Bagan responded with a brisk counter-break but Colaco, following a nice interplay with Boumous, could not keep the ball on target. Cummings also failed to make Manvir’s cut-back meaningful as BFC managed to stay true to their gameplan in frustrating the hosts.Bagan began the second half with four back-to-back corners, showing their intent. And BFC’s defensive discipline and focus eventually collapsed under the home team’s relentless pressure.BFC’s Australian defender Aleksandar Jovanovic managed to clear a Subhashis Bose cross from the right, but the ball fell on Cummings’ path inside the box. The Australian forward quickly laid it off for Boumous to drive home the winner. Any hopes for BFC to rescue something from the game vanished in no time following the dismissal of Wangjam and Roshan Singh.