Having lost the six-match winning streak with a draw against Mumbai FC in its last encounter, East Bengal returned to winning ways defeating Pune FC in the eighth round of the ONGC I-League match at the Salt Lake Stadium here on Saturday.
And the man who scored the winner was the gritty Australian Ozbey Tolgay. The stocky striker struck in the 63rd minute with a fine header off a cross from Sanju Pradhan. It was Tolgay's seventh goal of the league.
Leads the table
The victory took East Bengal to the top of table with 22 points from eight matches out of which it has won seven and drawn one. It is yet to lose a game.
Pune FC stayed on eight points from eight games and this was its second loss. It had won one and drawn five.
In a match dominated by East Bengal, the visiting side did have a few chances but it failed to grab those opportunities. The game started with Orji Penn missing a sitter and the Federation Cup champion blundered on two more occasions, the first in the 21st minute when Uga Okpara failed to provide the finishing touches and Soumik Dey completely missed a Naoba Singh cross.
Missed chances
Pune FC too had its scoring opportunities but Brazilian striker Edmar Figuera, returning to the squad from an injury, made a hash of a Sunil Kumar cross in the 55th minute and Izumi Arata missed an easy chance four minutes later.
The East Bengal forwards had the better of the Pune defenders in the air.
And in one such move, Pradhan managed to float the ball over the defenders to enable the Aussie connect a header which landed inside the net.
