NorthEast United rout Odisha FC to go third in ISL

As Indian Super League (ISL) nears its business end, teams in the top half are jostling for two top-four slots still up for grabs after leaders Mumbai City and defending champions ATK Mohun Bagan cemented their places in the playoffs.
On Sunday afternoon at Tilak Maidan, Khalid Jamil-coached NorthEast United took full advantage of facing a beleaguered Odisha FC and inflicted a comprehensive 3-1 defeat on the basement dwellers of the league to move ahead of the chasing pack.
Portuguese attacking midfielder Luis Machado scored a brace on either side of Jamaican striker Deshorn Brown’s strike as the Highlanders took a 3-0 lead in the 24th minute of the match. Ashutosh Mehta assisted for the opening strike while NorthEast’s man for all season, Uruguayan striker Federico Gallego, turned provider for the other two.
Brad Inman, on loan from ATKMB, pulled one back for Kalinga Warriors on the stroke of half-time to raise some hopes of staging a comeback but it wasn't to be.
Odisha did improve a lot in the second half after Diego Mauricio's inclusion but it was not enough to trouble NorthEast, who were down to 10 men when Gurjinder Kumar was given the marching orders by referee Pranjal Banerjee in the 86th minute following his second yellow of the match.
NEUFC are on third spot now with 26 points, two points more than chasers FC Goa and Hyderabad FC, after 17 games.
Taking the attack to their opponents' box from the go, NEUFC had to wait only nine minutes to break the deadlock. Winger VP Suhair laid Mehta with a short pass on the right and the full-back's beautiful cross was slotted home by Machado with a perfectly struck side volley from top of the box to the bottom left of Odisha net, which gave Arshdeep Singh absolutely no chance to react.
Odisha defence was caught napping time and again throughout the 90 minutes and it was their captain and defence mainstay Steven Taylor, who looked out the place the most. For a player like his stature, who has well over 200 appearances to his name as a Newcastle United centreback, the Englishman looked a pale shadow of his storied past.
NEUFC doubled their lead in the 19th minute when Gallego's defence splitting through to Brown on left was slotted home by the Jamaican with a side-footed nutmeg on Arshdeep, who could have done better on this occasion, near the first post. It was Gallego's fifth assist of the season.
Five minutes later, Gallego picked an unmarked run of Machado into the area and his superbly-placed lob was finished by Machado into the top of the net with a header.
Down with three goals early in the match, Odisha played as if just to finish the proceedings but against the run of play Inman reduced the margin in the first-half added time when he found the back of the net from a tight angle on left following a pass from Daniel Lalhlimpuia.
After the break, NEUFC seemed to enjoy protecting their lead while Odisha tried to up the ante with the introduction of Mauricio but failed to break the opponent defence despite Jerry Mawihmingthanga's energetic efforts.
Arshdeep was forced to two brilliant back-to-back saves in the 63rd minute to deny Machado a hat-trick and the Odisha keeper turned saviour on a couple of times, too, to deny NorthEast any chance of making the scoreline look ignominious.