Sporting, Aizawl eye full points (Preview)

Strugglers Sporting Clube de Goa will eye full points against relegation threatened Aizawl FC in their I-League match at the Nehru Stadium here on Wednesday.

Sporting Clube de Goa are winless in their last five outings and are fifth with 14 points from 12 matches. Bottom placed Aizawl have 12 from 13 matches.

At one point in the season, it looked like they too could fight for the league title but a series of poor results has them staring at relegation. Sporting head into the game on the back of a disappointing 3-1 defeat to DSK Shivajians.

Coach Mateus Costa will have a number of key questions to address. With Odafa Okolie still recovering from an injury, it will be interesting to see who takes the goal scoring responsibility. The Nigerian striker is expected to be named on the bench as he is yet to get back to optimum fitness.

Densill Theobald has struggled for fitness at Sporting. As a consquence, he has been replaced by striker Charles Esemena.

Arindam Bhattacharya looks set to start in goal. Joseph Clemente and Fulganco Cardozo will be the two full-backs with Loveday Enyinnaya and Subashish Bose as the two centre-backs.

Marcus Mascarenhas and Ganesh Thakur will contest for a spot on the right flank with Rowllin Borges and Glan Martins expected to start in the middle of the park.

Mahmoud Al Amenah and Victorino Fernandes will lead the line for the home team.

After their morale boosting victory over champions Mohun Bagan, Aizawl were expected to put in a good showing against Shillong Lajong. However, after taking an early lead, they seemed to have forgotten their defensive duties which allowed Lajong to pump in three past them.