ISL: Clinical Bengaluru FC beat Odisha FC 3-1 to spice up playoffs battle

Bengaluru FC clinched backtoback wins for the first time this season beating Odisha FC 31 in Matchweek 15 of the Indian Super League ISL 202223 at the Sree Kanteerava Stadium on Saturday to signal their arrival into the playoffs raceRohit Kumar broke the deadlock before Roy Krishna ended his tengame goalless streak to double the Blues advantageDiego Mauricio pulled one back from the spot in the opening stages of the second half but the home side managed to close Odisha FCs pursuit for the major part of the game before Pablo Perez came on to score his first goal for the Blues in stoppage time to wrap up all three points This was the first time this season that Bengaluru FC scored more than two goals in a gameSimon Grayson made just one change to his lineup as Sandesh Jhingan came into the Bengaluru FC defence replacing Aleksander Jovanovic For the first time in 13 Hero ISL games this season Josep Gombau fielded an unchanged Odisha FC XIAlso Read ISL Jamshedpur FC end their tengame winless streak dent East Bengal FCs playoff hopesDespite dominating possession in the early stages the Juggernauts were at the receiving end of two quickfire goals 25 minutes into the game Javi Hernandezs cross from the right flank was cut back across the face of goal by Alan Costa straight into the path of Rohit Kumar who planted the ball into the back of the netJust three minutes later against the run of play Sivasakthi Narayanan galloped down the left flank and played a perfect through ball for Roy Krishna The Fijian took a touch before calmly slotting the ball past Amrinder Singh to end his tengame goal droughtFive minutes from the break Hernandez pounced on a loose ball near the halfway line and sprinted towards the goal before seeing his closerange effort saved by AmrinderThe second half got off to a bright start with endtoend football on display The hosts had a couple of chances that were dealt with by Amrinder before Mauricio was brought down at the other end by Gurpreet Singh Sandhu after skipping past Parag ShrivasThe striker stepped up to take the penalty and sent Sandhu the wrong way from the spot to pull one back for his team It was the strikers fifth goal in three games for his clubBut problems piled up for Gombau as halftime substitute Victor Rodriguez picked up an injury and had to be taken off in the 70th minute with Pedro Martin coming on In the 92nd minute the game was put to bed after substitutes Udanta Singh and Pablo Perez combined to score on the counterattack as Odisha FC pushed hard in Bengaluru FCs thirdThis result splits open the playoffs race with Odisha FC once again vulnerable to being overtaken by FC Goa to fifth place while Bengaluru FC have cut their distance to the final playoff spot to three points level with Chennaiyin FC who are in seventh placeThe Blues will travel to Jamshedpur for their next game on January 18 The Juggernauts will not feature in the next Matchweek and will next be in action on January 28 against ATK Mohun BaganThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever