Calcutta: From being the group toppers of the AFC Cup, East Bengal find themselves with an outside chance of making it to the quarter finals. With seven points from five matches and a tough away match in Yemen left, Aloke Mukherjee knows a last-eight berth may prove elusive in the end.

The East Bengal coach blamed the barren draw on Wednesday against Safa SC at the Salt Lake Stadium on his team composition.

“We didn’t have a fit enough striker! With Edmilson out with a red card and an unfit Syed Rahim Nabi, I didn’t have a man for the job.

“But we still created enough openings for us to win 1-0. In fact, the one that Snehashish (Chakraborty) missed is hard to believe. But I can’t blame him because he at least created the opportunity…”

On East Bengal’s chances of making it to the knockout round, Mukherjee said: “Though I can’t say that we will go through, it would be foolish to write us off… Remember we had beaten Al Wihdat in Jordan, something no other Indian team had ever done before… So why can’t we repeat the feat in Yemen (versus Ahli Sana’a on May 14)?”

Safa SC coach Samir Saad said he was surprised at East Bengal’s failure to score.

“For a team which had defeated the formidable Al Wihdat in Jordan and had scored two more against them here, I found it incredible that they were unable to score today.”

Saad sounded upbeat about his team’s chances.

“Though we have a home match against Al Wihdat coming up, nothing can be taken for granted in football. But we are still the group toppers and hope we can make it to the last eight,” he said.