Beto and Ranty Martins share a light moment during Dempo’s practice session on Saturday, while (picture down) East Bengal coach Philippe de Ridder watches Alvito D’Cunha go for a shot. Pictures by Gautam Bose and Santosh Ghosh

Calcutta: After some brilliant display against Sporting Clube de Goa, East Bengal will look to reorganise their defence when they take on defending champions Dempo SC, Goa in the ninth round of the National Football League match for the ONGC Cup at the Salt lake Stadium on Sunday.

Despite having won 4-3, the red-and-golds are not ignoring the fact that they conceded three goals in their last outing.

“We cannot afford to overlook the defensive lapses that occurred in our match against Sporting,” East Bengal coach Phillipe de Ridder said. East Bengal didn’t have a full fledged practice session on the eve of the match, only five players turned up for warm-up along with coach Ridder.

The former champions have some key players on the injury list including Alvito D’Cunha, Covan Lawrence, M. Suresh and Gouranga Dutta. But Marshal Ndem, who missed the last match due to injury, will replace Lawrence in the deep defence.

Showing all respect to the depleted Dempo squad, Ridder pointed out Ranty Martins as the main danger for his team on Sunday. “Ranty is a superb performer, and so I would like to block him for our good,” Ridder said.

Dempo, on the other hand, will try their hearts out to come back in the championship race after having faced some serious injury problems to their players early in the season. Climax Lawrence, Riston Rodrigues, Sameer Naik, Jose Colaco and few others are on the injury list. “No other team could have kept going in these conditions,” striker Ranty said.

Ranty now aims to score at least four more goals as at the earliest to complete his tally of 10 in the competition. “I hope to score a goal against East Bengal too,” he said. The Nigerian doesn’t consider the duel as the Ranty-Bhaichung Bhutia tussle. “It is never the battle of two players? Dempo will take on East Bengal on Sunday,” he opined.

East Bengal, no doubt, will be looking for a win, but a reversal will also not mean the end of the road for Ridder. “If we cannot win also it will not be the end of the road, as we are on a process to build up a cohesive unit for the next season,” the coach stated.