Jubilant Mohun Bagan players at the Salt Lake Stadium on Tuesday. A Telegraph picture

Calcutta: A dejected East Bengal coach Manoranjan Bhattacharjee, feels that it would be a tough task for his team to make a return in the ongoing CFL Premier Division after Tuesday’s 2-1 loss to arch-rivals Mohun Bagan.

“It would be tough for us to return in the championship run,” Bhattacharjee said after Tuesday’s derby clash at the Salt Lake Stadium.

“A draw would have been a better result today… Then we could have had some chances left,” he emphasised.

Blaming it on destiny, Bhattacharjee made no excuse for losing the match — where his men maintained their domination till the 71st minute.

“It was all in our destiny… We made some gross mistakes and that’s what we paid for… Parveen missed those sitters towards the end… It was never a convincing win for them… Actually we invited them to score and gifted them the win,” he added.

Admitting that he actually gambled deciding to make a half-fit Alvito D’ Cunha play a crunch game like this, Bhattacharjee said: “I took this chance… I gambled and took this decision today (Tuesday) morning. He (Alvito) is a great ball-player and I knew his presence will make the difference.”

When asked why he kept the Brazilian Edmilson, who didn’t look promising at all, on the pitch as long as he did, Bhattacharjee explained: “His presence always has a psychological effect on the opponent and I thought it would make the difference.”

Meanwhile, Mohun Bagan’s Moroccan coach, Karim Bencharifa said that a change of plans did the trick for his boys, encouraging them to fight back and finally helping them win a tough battle that at one moment looked lost.

“We had every information about our opponent. We knew that that the second half will be advantageous… And so when we switched over from 4-4-2 to 4-3-3 in the second-half, things started working for us,” Karim said.

Talking about the win from a one-goal down situation, Karim said: “Yes the goal spoiled our plans… In the half-time, we discussed the mistakes and motivated the players… And from fitness point of view we outsmarted them.”