Nepali squad to field some new players

POKHARA, March 19: In his bid to work out new team formation, Nepal´s national football coach Graham Roberts has hinted of fielding some new players into the squad that will take on Bhutan on Saturday in the second of the friendly two-match series at the Pokhara Stadium.



Nepal defeated the visiting Bhutanese team 1-0 on Thursday in the first match at the same venue. Both Nepal and Bhutan are preparing for the AFC Challenge Cup group D qualifiers.[break]



Nepal has come up with new team formation -- 4-3-3 (four defenders, three midfielders and three forwards) breaking the tradition format of 4-4-2.



"I want to give chance to all 23 players currently undergoing close camp training," Roberts told Republica after training session on Friday.



"Though there won´t be changes in the defense line-up and goalkeeping, there might be changes in other positions." The defense line-up consists of Sagar Thapa (C), Rohit Chand, Robin Shrestha and Biraj Maharjan while Kiran Chemjong is the goalkeeper.



Roberts also said that he would focus on dominating ball possessions, attacks and multiple passes. In the Thursday´s match, Nepal could not keep the ball for long against the traditional ´underdogs´ and shot lots of miss-passes. In their nine encounters against the visitors so far, Nepal have defeated Bhutan on all occasions.



He also said that the focus will be on scoring as many goals as possible. "We will try to score more goals and focus on more crosses."



The 51 year-old Briton, who played for English Premier League clubs Chelsea and Tottenham, said that his side would try to utilize dead balls. "Among total goals scored, 75 percent come from dead balls but we were unable to utilize them on Thursday."



Regarding individual player´s performance in the first match, he termed defender Chand´s performance as extraordinary. "He has all the qualities of a professional footballer," Roberts said.



Bhutan are in Nepal to play friendly matches as part of their preparation for the Challenge Cup playoff matches against Afghanistan scheduled to be held on March 23 and 25 in New Delhi, India.



The winner of the playoff will qualify for the group D qualifiers of the cup to be held in Kathmandu from April 7 to 11. Other teams in the group are the hosts Nepal, Sri Lanka and North Korea.

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