Delhi lad Robin ruled out of remainder of SAFF Cup

Thiruvananthapuram: Indian football team on Tuesday suffered a blow ahead of their SAFF Cup semifinals against Maldives on Thursday as striker Robin Singh was ruled out of the remainder of the tournament due to knee injury.

Delhi lad Robin failed to recover from the knee injury he suffered during India's 2-0 win over Sri Lanka in their opening match on December 25. Robin, who has been released from the squad, had scored both the India's goals and he was stretchered out in the 75th minute after scoring his second goal.

He did not play India's second group match against Nepal which the home side won 4-1 to book a semifinal berth. Head coach Stephen Constantine termed the ruling out of Robin due to injury as "disappointing". "Yesterday's (December 28) MRI revealed that his knee problem is a bit more serious that we had expected.

The doctors have advised us that he will need 10 days rest before undergoing another MRI," Constantine said. "It's a blow and a loss for us. He had started to score for the national team on a regular basis and is such a hard working guy," he added.

As per the guidelines of the SAFF Cup, India will not be allowed to register any replacement for Robin. A day prior to India's match against Nepal, Constantine had said that Robin's injury was not a serious one and he will be back.

But, it seemed that the situation has changed now and Robin must be disappointed as he has been having an impressive season so far, scoring goals for Delhi Dynamos in the recently-concluded Indian Super League and finding the target for the national team in the World Cup qualifiers and the ongoing SAFF Cup.