Yusif Yakubu and Bhaichung Bhutia during East Bengal’s practice session at the Salt Lake Stadium on Saturday. A Telegraph picture

Calcutta: Battered and bruised, East Bengal look to Bhaichung Bhutia and Yusif Yakubu to lift them from the pits when they take on a confident JCT in an I-League encounter at the Salt Lake Stadium on Sunday.

In the five matches they have played this season, the red-and-gold brigade have conceded 13 goals and are still without a win. Even the old timers will find it hard to recall such a miserable start!

Still when one saw a platoon of supporters thronging the artificial turf of the stadium, watching their favourite players going through the motions, it gave an impression as if Subhas Bhowmick’s boys, and not JCT, are the early pace setters.

The fans probably are hoping against hope that the deadly duo of Bhutia and Yakubu will give them something to cheer about this season. For the record, this will be Bhutia’s first match at home as an East Bengal player and obviously he would like to find his name in the scoresheet.

If Bhutia has not struck gold yet for East Bengal, Yakubu has been quite impressive in his very first match against Mahindra United in Mumbai.

During his 30-minute stay he was a constant menace to the rival defence and rightfully got a goal. Don’t forget the fact that he arrived in Calcutta from Ghana on Sunday, reached Mumbai on Monday night and took the field on Tuesday itself. “He is still tired. But much better than he was in Mumbai,” said coach Bhowmick.

Yakubu has this talent of drawing out his markers and that gives teammates that extra space in the rival defensive third. The likes of Bhutia, skipper Syed Rahim Nabi, who will play through pain, and Sanju Pradhan are smart enough to poach a mile if yielded an inch and JCT coach Sukhwinder Singh knows that too well.

No wonder the venerable Sukhi paaji is not reading too much into his team’s fantastic start and said that East Bengal have enough ammunition to bring them back to earth. “Look they are in a spot of bother. But they have too many good players to turn it around,” he said.

JCT will be missing left half Sakatar Singh who suffered a cut on his forehead after a collision with R Vashum the other day and his place will be taken by either Jaswinder Singh or Lalchuan Mawai. JCT’s trump card obviously will be Baljit Singh Sahni who already has four goals under his belt from two matches.

Baljit and Balwant Singh’s pace would be quite a handful for a ragged East Bengal defence. Add to that the muscles of Penn Orji and Jagpreet Singh in the centre of the park and JCT have the wherewithal to give East Bengal a run for their money.

Two seasons back JCT took home six points from two matches defeating both Mohun Bagan and East Bengal. Bagan have already been tamed. Will Sunday see JCT getting the better of red and gold brigade? Don’t be surprised if that happens.