“In big clubs, you got to give results, otherwise you are not supposed to stay,” Subhas Bhowmick had said when he took over the reins from Stanley Rozario. East Bengal fired Rozario basically for just a single failure — a loss in the penalty shoot-out against Mohun Bagan in the Federation Cup semi-final. East Bengal otherwise had an excellent Federation Cup in which they played their best football last season. Just when Rozario and the players had struck the right chord, the former got the boot as success, or rather the lack of it against their arch-rivals, became more important to the club officials than the overall performance.

East Bengal under Bhowmick did manage to beat Bagan in the I-League second-leg encounter but their overall standings in the tournament didn’t improve and they barely managed to stave off relegation.

This season the club has given Bhowmick carte-blanche in picking players, finalising their contracts and working out strategies. Bhowmick handpicked the foreign recruits, had a three-week residential camp at Puri and went to Myanmar to play practice matches in the lead-up to the IFA Shield. Expectations were naturally high as the red-and-golds started their Shield campaign against minnows Tata Football Academy. They conceded three goals. In the next match, they conceded another four against Chirag United and all the claims made by the coach before the start of the season now appear to be hollow.

Rozario, however, stands by his successor. “It’s only the start of the season and just a couple of losses don’t a bad team make. You got to give the coach some more time. It would be gross injustice to make him a scapegoat for the failure in the season opener. Bhowmick is very experienced and has delivered in the past. I would like to see the club management keeping faith in him,” Rozario, who is now in charge of the newly-promoted I-League side Lajong FC, told The Indian Express.

... contd.