Calcutta: Mohun Bagan kept their chase for the title — however fragile it appears to be — alive, beating the relegation strugglers Eastern Railway 2-0 in their Sahara CFL Premier Division match on Monday. Man of the Match Ayan Chowdhury put the home ahead in the 27th minute and Satyajit Bose extended it in the dying minutes of the match.

After 12 matches, defending champions Mohun Bagan are now on 24 points while East Bengal continue to lead the eight-team table with 25 points from 11 outings. Eastern Railway struggle to stay in the elite division having collected 11 points from 12 matches.

On Monday, Eastern Railway lost ground against the hosts due to some poor defensive work. A case in point was Ayan’s goal. When Eduardo Coelho met Satyajit’s corner with a header, the goalkeeper Chinmoy Banerjee came out of his line, but couldn’t go anywhere near the Brazilian. Then, the defender Bijoy Das, who was guarding the first post, didn’t challenge Ayan either as the Mohun Bagan striker tapped the ball in from close.

Teams

Mohun Bagan: Sangram Mukherjee; Dulal Biswas, Eduardo Coelho, Sanjeev Maria, Manas Das, Satyajit Bose, D. Ravanan, Chinmoy Sarkar, Subhas Chakraborty (Guy Herve Ndem, 56), Ayan Chowdhury, Dipendu Biswas.

Eastern Railway: Chinmoy Banerjee; Sanchit Dutta Barman, Shantanu Bit, Barun Kundu, Bijoy Das, Pervez Alam, Joydeep Bose, Bapan Bera, Mohammed Nadim, Niladri Sekhar Chakraborty (Archisman Biswas, 56), Samrat Roy Chowdhury (Saikat Mondal, 68).

Referee: Dilip Ghosh.

Man-of-the-Match: Ayan Chowdhury.