East Bengal steamroll Chennai 7-1 to stay in I-League title race

Kolkata Feb 24 (IANS) Nigerian veteran striker Dudu Omagbemi scored four goals as East Bengal crushed Chennai City FC 7-1 here on Saturday to keep themselves firmly in contention for the I-League title.

Dudu signed by the Red and Golds in the January transfer window notched up the first hat-trick of the season (32nd 49th 56th 61st) as Syrian midfielder Mahmoud Al Amna (20th) and substitute Gabriel Fernandes (84th) also got on the scoresheet.

Defender Dharmaraj Ravanan scored an own goal (23rd) in the first half as the visitors could never recover from the early setback and were left chasing shadows for most parts of the game.

Substitute Mashoor Shereef Thangalakath netted a consolation goal for Chennai a minute after coming on in the 59th minute at the Vivekananda Yuba Bharati Krirangan.

This is the highest-margin victory this season in the league propelling East Bengal (29 points from 16 games) to second position ahead of Minerva Punjab FC (29 points from 16 games) on better head-to-head record.

East Bengal next travel to Shillong to take on Lajong before finishing league engagements with a crunch tie against table toppers Neroca FC on March 8 at home.

Chennai placed eighth in the ten-team points table have one more match to go against Minerva on March 2.

--IANS
dm/pur/dg