Sunil Chhetri's return strengthens our side: Mumbai City's assistant coach

Mumbai: Mumbai City FC assistant coach Oscar Bruzon believes India football team captain Sunil Chhetri's return to the squad after serving national duty will boost and strength the side against Chennaiyin FC in an Indian Super League (ISL) match here on Friday.

Placed in the bottom half of the table at the seventh position with one draw and a loss against Kerala Blasters FC and FC Pune City respectively, Mumbai will have to pull up their socks in order to gather full points in front of their home crowd.

"Happy to have Sunil Chhetri back in the squad for the match. His presence will weigh a lot in the team and with his inclusion, we will be a much stronger side,” Bruzon said at the pre-match press conference here.

Ahead of Friday's clash, Mumbai received a big blow with midfielder and first season's only hat-trick scorer Andre Moritz heading home for personal reasons.

“After two away matches, now we are excited to play at home and five consecutive matches will be something to watch out for. We have lot of talent in the squad. We have top players who can replace Moritz in the squad,” Bruzon said.

Speaking about the first two matches and the crucial upcoming first home match against Chennaiyin, the assistant coach said, “May be we did not win the last two matches but we played to the best of our ability. We want to win against Chennaiyin and register our first win of the season."

"Tomorrow (Friday) we will not be coming on the field with the full squad. Every single minute of the ISL is very important now. We have plan A, B, C in our hand. Hope we get our first victory against Chennaiyin," he said.

“There is no excuse here in such competitive level. We don’t have to look back what happened and need to focus on what we have the task in hand ahead,” Bruzon said.

Haitian striker Sony Norde, who knows the Indian conditions well after playing for Mohun Bagan in the I-League believes the team, after a slow start, needs to focus on the upcoming match and deliver well as a unit.

“We have to focus on the game in hand and not look back. We want to win our first home match. Coach Nicolas Anelka has been training us and letting us know the technical and all aspects of the game,” Norde said.