Kolkata: Kerala youngster Jobby Justin once again emerged as a game-changer with an assist followed by an opportunistic strike at the Salt Lake Stadium here, Sunday that enabled East Bengal defeat arch rivals Mohun Bagan 2-0 to remain in I-League title contention.
The 25-year-old first set the ball up for Jaime Colado who broke the deadlock in the 35th minute and then angled his header to perfection beating custodian Shilton Paul to seal three points for the red and gold brigade. It is after 15 long years that East Bengal have won both derbies in a single edition of national league.
East Bengal by virtue of this win with 25 points from 13 games moved up to fourth position. Real Kashmir has same points from equal number of matches but are placed third on account of better goal difference.
East Bengal looked a compact unit while Mohun Bagan were let down by their back four while a couple of refereeing decisions also went against them.
In a 51st minute move, Colado had a bitter tussle with Dipanda Dicka and seemed to have fisted the Cameroonian forward inside the box but referee Ramaswamy Srikrishna of Coimbatore chose to ignore the incident. Moments later, Mohun Bagan got the real opportunity to level when Eze’s powerful header hit the horizontal.
PTI