TILAK MAIDAN: Blasters coach Ivan Vukomanovic has said that the team has not fully recovered from the Covid crisis and that it may take some time for the players to regain full fitness. Vukomanovic was speaking at an online press conference ahead of match against North East United on Friday.

Blasters, withdrawed from several matches, as most of the players were affected by Covid, returned to action against Bengaluru FC last week after a gap of several days. But the Blasters lost the match for score 1-0. In the second half of the match, it was clear that the Blasters players, who looked exhausted, were far behind the Bangalore players in terms of fitness. The match itself was a great example which showed how Covid affected the Blasters players.

The coach's words indicate that the team has not improved much in terms of fitness. The coach had said that after the match against Bengaluru he knew how much his players were suffering and therefore did not want to put too much pressure on them.

"We have to continue working hard. In the last match, we played after a long time but the boys showed a good mentality to fight. The boys have a winners' mentality and we want our fans to know whatever game it is, we will fight for the logo and for the fans," Vukomanovic said.

"We have to be ready to compete as the league is very hard and unpredictable. We also can't want to play in front of our home fans as I believe that will give us wings to fly," he added.