Kerala Blasters FC will target their first-ever league double over East Bengal FC, who will be desperate to break their goalless run, when the two sides lock horns in their Indian Super League match here on Thursday.
Kerala Blasters FC, who currently sit eighth on the table with 21 points from 17 matches, whereas East Bengal FC are 11th with 14 points from 16 outings, on the back of four wins and a couple of draws.
East Bengal come into this game on the back of a three-match losing streak, with their longest such run within a single season being six consecutive defeats earlier in this campaign.
A fourth consecutive loss would see them join NorthEast United FC as the only teams to register multiple losing streaks of four or more games in a single ISL season.
Kerala Blasters, meanwhile, snapped their four-game away losing streak with a 1-0 win against Punjab FC on January 5, 2025. They will look to secure back-to-back away victories for the first time since December 2023.
The team has shown remarkable improvement under the helm of interim head coach TG Purushothaman. Their goals conceded per game average has come down to 0.6 from 2.0 under Mikael Stahre, and Kerala Blasters have not permitted their opponents to register an expected goals (xG) value of more than one in any of the five games under Purushothaman.
They have converted four out of their five big chances into goals in this time period, and that 80% strike rate is considerably higher than the 52.4% conversion they recorded on this front under Stahre’s watch.
Kerala Blasters have won thrice and drawn once in their previous five matches. They have netted 26 times in 17 games, spearheaded by Jesus Jimenez and Noah Sadaoui, who have scored 10 and seven goals respectively.
East Bengal FC, on the other hand, have found the back of the net the third-least times in the competition (16), as the trio of David Lalhlansanga, Dimitrios Diamantakos, and Vishnu Puthiya scoring thrice each.
Both teams have kept four clean sheets each so far. The Kochi-based side is three points behind the sixth-placed Odisha FC (24). They will hope to keep their top-six hopes in play with a victory here, whereas East Bengal will want to regain some lost momentum to spark their ambitions for the rest of the campaign.
