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ISL 2017: Pune City assistant coach Grujic confident of beating any team in ISL

FC Pune City rose to the second position on the league table after a convincing win 5-0 against NorthEast United, in Pune on Saturday. In the absence of head coach Ranko Popovic, who remains suspended for four games for his remarks against the match officials after his team's 2-0 win over FC Goa, the second in command Vladica Grujic was in charge of the stallions against the Highlanders. 

After pumping five goals in their own backyard the Pune City assistant coach was confident that his side could beat any team in ISL.

"This team will play much better and we can beat any team in ISL. The players know that we play with discipline and have a specific plan against each team. Against Chennaiyin also we played good football. Yes, they won but we played well. The players are confident and we are satisfied with the way we are playing," said a confident Grujic.

Although his side scored two more after the break he believed that the second-half performance of his team could have been better.

"I am not satisfied with the second-half. Yes we stayed compact but we did not play good football. Yet we managed to score the goals. In the last two to three games, we played good football but we did not score the goals. They could have scored three goals in the first half but we maintained good discipline."

"At half-time, I told my boys to think it is still 0-0 and not 3-0. We had to be more disciplined as they had got the chances in the first-half. We play good counter-attacking football with Marcelinho and Alfaro and we played accordingly," stated the Serbian.

Grujic admitted that they have been working with the defense for sometime, and had specific plans to stop NEUFC's Marcinho.

"We are working really hard with the defense. They are a strong team and we had made plans how to stop their number 10 (Marcinho). Sometimes you lose the game, and yet you are happy with the performance. But today we were a little bit lucky I must say as they missed scoring chances. But we are happy to finish the year with five goals.," concluded the UEFA Pro Licence  holder.