SRINAGAR (India): Real Kashmir FC gave 10,152 attending home fans a satisfactory outing with a narrow 1-0 victory over the Indian Arrows in I-League on Monday.
Ivorian midfielder Bazie Armand scored the all-important winner in the 70th minute to help his side get back in the mix with 18 points from 12 games.
The Kashmir side jumped to fifth while Indian Arrows remained at the bottom of the pile with eight points from 13 games, the AIFF reported on their website.
Both sides went into the match on the back of losses in their previous games.
This probably made both coaches ring in changes as Kashmir’s David Robertson made as many as three — bringing in Ritwik Kumar Das, Englishman Kallum Higginbotham and defender Novin Gurung, in place of Dalraj, Brian Mascarenhas and Danish Farooq.
Arrows head coach Venkatesh Shanmugham played Harmanpreet upfront and Ricky Shabong in midfield. Vikram Pratap was not on the bench and Telem Suranjit Singh also did not start.
Zambian Aaron Katebe created the first chance of the game for Real Kashmir — as he twisted and turned past a couple of Arrows defenders to create a chance for himself from close, but his right-footed toe-poke was dealt with by Arrows custodian Jongte.
Then, Robin Singh had a couple of chances. Mason Robertson showed great vision to put him through on one occasion and then Higginbotham found him with a trademark floater but much could not come out of those opportunities.
The best chance of the half though went to the Arrows about four minutes before it ended. It was a lovely team move initiated by Hendry Antonay from the left flank.
He played in Ricky Shabong, who ran forward with purpose to put a lovely through-ball onto Harmanpreet, who had made the run to his left. Harman was soon one-on-one with the keeper from a tight angle but missed the target.
