ISL: Chennaiyin FC head coach John Gregory claims he knows what to expect in their contest with Goa

Chennai, Nov 19: Indian Super League side, Chennaiyin FC are all ready to play their first match of the season against old rival FC Goa as head coach John Gregory has claimed that he has a fair idea of what to expect in their contest with Goa.

Chennaiyin have had a successful ISL stint in three years as under former boss Materazzi, won the title in 2015 and reached the semi-final on one more occasion.

Materazzi decided to step down from the job ahead of the campaign, which made the Chennaiyin FC team management to go for another high profile coach in Gregory, a former Aston Villa and Queens Park Rangers manager.

The Englishman will play his first game of the season today against their Old foes, FC Goa, whom they beat in the memorable final two years ago, to lift the trophy and while talking about the tie Gregory claimed he feels fully settled and knows how their opponent manager, Sergio Lobera will line up against him.

"I'm just looking forward to getting started. I got excited watching the opening ceremony yesterday and obviously the game after. It wasn't a great game, but the outcome was a great result for us. We're only one point behind the leaders," Gregory said jokingly.

"Obviously I've met Sergio. He's got his ideas on how he wants his team to play. So we can expect them to play in a very Spanish style, keeping possession of the football and wanting to press in our half of the pitch. We have a rough idea of what exactly will be their starting lineup," said the Chennaiyin coach.

Gregory also provided an update on his preferable squad in the match as he informed that only one of his player, Germanpreet will be unavailable due to a knock in the game but will be fit for their next match on Thursday, which is against Northeast United FC.

"We're in pretty good shape to be fair. We've got all 25 players in our squad. Germanpreet, who's come back from the national team, picked up a bit of a knock though, while on national duty. He might not make the game tomorrow, but we anticipate he'll be fit for the game on Thursday. Other than that everyone else is in good condition," said the Englishman.

However, while explaining about their development throughout the Pre-season camp, the new coach rue the chances of not getting national team players like Jeje, Jerry etc from the start as they were out on Indian National camp for AFC Asian Cup qualifier. He also mentioned that he is concerned with the Indian national team players' workload and will be taking care of them more to keep them in good condition in the long run.

"Unfortunately, for three weeks we lost our international players, the boys that have been away with their national teams. That has disrupted some of our plans. Some of the guys, like Jeje, have not been able to play because of national duty. So we've not always had a full squad," he said.

"It'll be very intriguing to see because the India boys who've returned, they've been training and playing at a very high intensity while the others have not. We will have to monitor Jeje, Jerry, Germanpreet and Thapa because they've been playing continually for a long time and have had literally no rest whatsoever. These boys have played plenty in the last 3 months while the others haven't. Fortunately, the international teams don't play until next March, which is a blessing," concluded Gregory.