Salgaocar keen to improve their position

Riding on their last four wins, Salgaocar are keen to improve their position at the top when they meet bottom-place HAL on Wednesday.

Margao: Riding on their last four wins, Salgaocar are keen to improve their position at the top when they meet bottom-place HAL in the 15th round of the I-League at the Nehru Stadium on Wednesday.

Salgaocar`s last four win have taken them to seventh place with 22 points from 14 matches, while HAL are placed last with three points from as many matches. Salgaocar will miss Isfaq Ahmed tomorrow due to double booking but that will not worry coach Karim Bencherifa who have a good bench strength to replace him. "Our team struggled to come to term in the beginning but the win in the last four matches have raised the confident of my players. Now we need to maintain the consistency," said Karim. "Going by the performance in the last five matches, we have lost only one while the top teams struggled and dropped points which has helped us to close the gap at the top. Now our boys need to carry on the hard work put in and continue winning matches to find ourselves in the race for the title.” "HAL have lost quite many matches which saw their confidence level going down. But we do respect them and cannot take them lightly as they will try their best to spring a surprise, so we have to be cautious. We are confident of garnering full points as we have the advantage of playing at home and also beat them in the first phase," said Bencherifa. HAL will be missing striker T Hamza due to double booking is confident of putting a fight against Salgaocar who are on high after their draw against Prayag United. "We will go all out for a win tomorrow as we are fighting to avoid relegation. A couple of win will raise the confidence of his team which is required for our survival," said HAL coach Tyagarajan. PTI