Doha: Bob Houghton was shouting at the top of his voice. “Shoot Manjit, shoot,” he screamed as Manjit Singh collected the ball in the open, around five yards from the penalty box at the Al Rayyan Sports Complex practice ground.

Even the bunch of volunteers, wearing the familiar green and yellow tracksuits, followed Manjit’s actions keenly from outside the pitch. The midfielder did take a shot promptly, but his Mahindra United teammate Subhashish Roy Chowdhury remained unmoved under the bar. The shot had enough punch but no direction.

Minutes later, Houghton called off the practice and settled on a chair.

“You haven’t scored many goals in the past few months,” someone remarked.

“Yes,” the British coach looked up. “Three since the away match in Saudi Arabia,” he said. “May be things are better now. In Dubai, they struck five times in two friendly games.”

The chief coach looked up at the sky for a few seconds. On the eve of the group D match against the Maldives on Sunday, his mood seemed to be as cloudy as the Doha weather.

“It’s simply a matter of confidence. When you have been scoring regularly, you are encouraged to take shots at the goal. Otherwise, you hesitate. But if you don’t make attempts, goals will never come.”

“We need taller boys,” Houghton started talking on his favourite topic. “In the forwardline, as well as in defence. Against Hong Kong, I played Habibur (Rehman Mondal) instead of Debu (Debabrata Roy) since Habibur is a bit taller. He had to play on the flanks in defence. He did well, but couldn’t really help in attacks.”

Against the Maldives, he is likely to bring back Roy in the starting line-up, but will India be able to end their goal drought? The last time India played against the Maldives was in the SAFF Championship semi-final in Islamabad. The team, then under Syed Nayeemuddin, won 1-0 with N.S. Manju scoring the winner.

The trend has been more or less the same since then. Manju and N.P. Pradeep have scored more goals than the strikers in the past one year. Houghton has tried quite a few combinations — Bhaichung Bhutia-Sushil Singh, Bhaichung-Sunil Chhetri, Bhaichung-Manjit, but none has worked.

“Are you looking for some new combination here?” the coach was asked. Houghton smiled and got up from the chair, and started walking towards the bench. “Let’s wait for a few more months. By then I’ll know the position.”