Douglas da Silva celebrates with teammates after scoring one of his two goals against Peerless at the East Bengal ground on Wednesday. Picture by Santosh Ghosh

Calcutta: East Bengal returned to winning ways with a 4-0 mauling of Peerless at their home ground on Wednesday. Douglas da Silva (2), Louis Aniweta and Shasthi Duley were the scorers.

The glamour side struggled to get their rhythm at the outset, but the introduction of Tushar Rakshit gave the much-needed impetus in the midfield. Attacks were more frequent and well-directed, and once Douglas opened the scoreline in the closing stages of the first half, there was no stopping East Bengal.

Peerless must also thank their goalkeeper Arijit Sengupta for restricting the defeat margin to just four goals. He started off with fisting away a dipping Douglas free-kick in the nick of time and then foiled another couple of gilt-edged opportunities.

It was Malsawmtluanga’s corner that fetched East Bengal the first goal. Douglas utilised the slack defending to head the ball to the left of the goalie.

The second goal came five minutes into the second session. Louis Aniweta’s header off a Malsawmtluanga centre had crossed the goalline when a rival defender tried to put the ball back into play. Referee Arup Chakraborty, however, relied on his assistant’s judgement to rule a goal.

Aniweta started upfront and then reverted to the defender’s role once Gurpreet Singh was substituted. That, though, did not prevent him from helping the forwards.

East Bengal had to wait till the 66th minute for the third goal. Malsawmtluanga and Tushar played a quick wall pass and then Douglas had to exert very little effort in placing the ball into the top of the net.

Four minutes from close came the final goal. Shasthi covering a good 25 yards and then putting it past the advancing goalie.

TEAMS

East Bengal: Rajat Ghosh Dastidar, Surya Bikash Chakraborty, Madhab Das, Sandip Das, Gurpreet Singh (Tushar Rakshit, 20), Shasthi Duley, Shylo Malsawmtluanga (Akshay Das, 71), Chandan Das, Syed Rahim Nabi (Bhola Prasad, 80), Douglas da Silva, Louis Aniweta.

Peerless: Arijit Sengupta, Dipanshu Majumder, Manoj Das, Osto Karar, Tridib Majumder, Amulya Mondal, Laltu Mondal, S. MangalamJeo Singh (Dipak Das, 63), Henry Odefa, Yusuf Mansoor, Arunava Sarkar (Chandan Debnath, 26).

Referee: Arup Chakraborty.