Alejandro Menendez - Individual mistakes cost East Bengal

East Bengal's poor form in the I-League continued as they suffered a frustrating 1-3 defeat at the hands of Gokulam Kerala on Wednesday.

The Red and Golds were scrappy right from the off and were rightly punished by the visitors.

When asked about the performance of the team, Spanish coach Alejandro Menendez said, "I think we had a bad game. There were many individual mistakes. We conceded the second goal when we were playing well and the game just went out of the way. Then in the second half, the other team worked on their confidence scored another goal and won the match."

The Spanish coach further mentioned that clear mistakes cost them the match against Gokulam. He said, "I see the game as a defeat. I think we played well but we made clear mistakes and that's why we lost."

East Bengal are now under huge pressure ahead of the all-important Kolkata Derby on January 19. When asked if the back-to-back defeats will harm the team's confidence, Menendez said, "Next game is very close, we have to recover as fast as possible. (We have to)Rectify our mistakes and try to win the match."

Menendez refused to speak about signing new foreigners in the January transfer window. He added, "I think this may be not the right moment to (answer) that question. We suffered a problem with Borja (Gomez). Then we had some injuries. In the six games we played, we used six different teams. It's not an excuse. We are trying to improve the team. We were at our best in December and now we are at our worst. We need to have a big view of the picture."