A blunder by skipper Shilton Paul cost table toppers Mohun Bagan dear as wooden spooners Bharat FC beat them 1-0 in an I-League football match on Tuesday.
Veteran Manipuri forward Subhash Singh scored the only goal of the match in the 34th minute via rebound when Bagan custodian Paul fluffed his lines badly.
The loss could impact Bagan's chances of winning the coveted league title after a gap of 13 years having last won the silverware in 2001-02 season.
Bagan now have 32 points from 16 matches after the second loss of the season while Bengaluru FC, with 31 from equal number of games, are hot on their heels.
The build up of the goal happened a minute earlier when Manjeet Singh's low long ranger was uncomfortably gathered by Paul. He looked in some kind of pain as he decided against taking a goalkick and just dropped the ball for usual shot.
Little did he anticipate Subash charging towards him as he literally hurried him into taking a crack. The Manipuri forward turned his back as a reflex action and to Paul's horror, the ball hit the striker's back before entering the goal.
It was a freak strike which enabled Bharat FC to maintain their lead and go upto 15 points from 16 matches with Sporting Clube de Goa now languishing at the bottom of the 11-team table.
However, the reason why Mohun Bagan coach Sanjoy Sen removed the consistent Debjit Majumdar for Paul, who had been short of match practice begs explanation.
It was one of the worst performance by Mohun Bagan this season with Balwant Singh upfront, Shehnaz Singh in the midfield and Pritam Kotal down wide right were totally off-clour. It left Katsumi Yusa and Sony Norde with a lot of workload with not much support from their teammates.
Balwant, for once, had a clear look at the opposition goal but his first-time shot was off target when he had rival custodian Arindam Bhattacharya at his mercy.
In the second half, Paul did effect a couple of saves in a one-on-one situations against Subhash but it did not compensate for the damage that was done as Bharat FC's Gourmangi Singh, Syed Rahim Nabi, Dharamraj Ravanan defended dourly in the end.
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