After a horrendous start to the league, has Lajong's young brigade finally turned a corner?

“There is a buffer that we have to fill and fast – that of the difference in the experience levels between the standard required at this level and that of our young squad. Unfortunately, the players have to learn fast and that can only come through hard work,” Thangboi Singto had spoken of the challenge facing Shillong Lajong’s rather youthful squad this season.

Having fielded an average of seven players under the age of 22 in each one of their league matches this season, way higher than any of their opponents, Singto was well within his rights to be skeptical of his team’s chances this season.

The start had been anything but ideal, a 3-0 loss away to Bengaluru FC followed by a 2-0 reverse at the hands of Mohun Began. And then in a frantic Northeast derby where they really should have come away with a point at the very least, two defensive errors cost them a tight affair against Aizawl and they were left staring at the bottom of the barrel, with no points from their three away games.

A welcome run

As Lajong headed to Shillong play their first home game of the season against newcomers and fellow basement dwellers Minerva Punjab in a must-win six-pointer, they would have been reminded of a similar poor start last season where they had only two wins from their first 11 games, both narrow 1-0 victories at home.

They couldn’t have wished for a kinder run of home fixtures, their opponents in rounds 4-8: Minerva, Mumbai, Chennai City, Churchill Brothers and DSK Shivajians.

However, their subsequent wins over the first three cannot be attested to mere home advantage as a closer look at their performances, especially the one against Mohun Bagan reveal a pattern of sterile domination in the final third without scoring punctuated by fatal errors in defence.

This streak of three straight wins is their best in the league since February 2012 and has seen them garner nine points, half of what they earned last season to finish sixth in a nine-team league.

With the likes of DSK, Minerva and Chennai safe from relegation for the first three years of their existence due to a clause in their corporate contracts with the AIFF, the scrap for relegation will most likely involve Lajong, Mumbai and Churchill Brothers.

Sixteen of their 18 points in the last campaign came at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium and home form will be key to their chances of survival again.

A winning combination

A true test of their strength may come against leaders East Bengal in an away game on the 15th but should they win their next two games against teams placed seventh and eighth in the table, Lajong will be on 15 points and will be close to the first milestone of avoiding relegation and a top five finish, which incidentally will be their highest ever, may well be within reach.

They are subtle differences however, with last season. A third of the season has passed and they are only one win shy of last season’s tally of four. After conceding seven in their first three, they scored the same in their next three.

Scoring goals proved to be a problem for Singto’s side last time around with the team managing only 14 goals. This time, Lajong look more expansive with young fullbacks Samuel Shadap and Pritam Kumar Singh adding width to their play.

Singto has stressed on persistence with a winning combination, and seems to have hit upon a formula which is paying dividends at the moment.

Dicka-Isaac double act

Changes were made at both ends of the pitch after a sluggish start. One of the major calls taken by the coach involved the confinement of Fabio Pena to the bench, pushing Asier Dipanda Dicka further forward.

The move paid off handsomely as the Cameroonian recruited from DSK after a seven goal season, is joint top of the goalscoring charts with five strikes. Singto had earlier declared that Dicka’s best was yet to come and his signing could make a difference of two to three places come the end of the season.

Isaac Vanmalsawma, the club’s 20-year old midfielder also called up to the national camp has played a pivotal role in four of Dicka’s five goals including both the goals against Chennai City.

The Mizo had tormented Chennai all night long with his dead-ball deliveries as opposition coach Robin Charles Raja would accept later on. The first goal came from an inch-perfect ball floated in from the left while the second was a free-kick whipped into a dangerous position.

The defensive pairing of captain Nim Dorjee Tamang and Chinglensana Singh had also kept a clean sheet, something Singto had stressed on in the build-up to the game. With the pair growing in confidence after each game, Romanian Dan Ignat might find it tough to regain his place in the squad into the squad after recovering from injury.

With their fortunes on the upswing and with the promise of old heads in young bodies threatening to come good, it finally does look like the worst is over for the Shillong-based club. The question is, can they sustain this momentum long enough to worry the league’s big boys?