Bengaluru picked up crucial three points on Sunday as they beat rivals Kerala Blasters 4-2 in an Indian Super League (ISL) at the FatordaStadium, Goa.
Cleiton Silva (29'), Erik Paartalu (51'), Dimas Delgado (53') and Sunil Chhetri (65') were on target for the Blues while Rahul KP (17') and Vicente Gomez (61') scored for Kerala Blasters.
Carles Cuadrat made two changes to the Bengaluru lineup. Pratik Choudhary made his debut for the club replacing Rahul Bheke and Kristian Opseth returned to the starting eleven in place of Deshorn Brown.
Kibu Vicuna made four changes as Jordan Murray, Lalruatthara, Prasanth Karuthadathkuni and Jeakson Singh replaced Costa Nhamoinesu, Jessel Carneiro, Rohit Kumar and Nongdamba Naorem. Murray joined Hooper upfront as the coach tweaked the formation to a 4-4-2.
Jordan Murray got the first chance of the match to break the deadlock in the 14th minute when he picked up Facundo Pereyra's pass on the right side of the box. An alert Gurpreet Singh Sandhu saved his shot at the near post.
Blasters scored the opening goal against the run of play in the 17th minute. Dimas Delgado's short free-kick was intercepted by Garry Hooper who covered almost the full length of the pitch starting from his own penalty box and found Rahul KP to his right who scored past Gurpreet with an excellent finish.
Bengaluru responded with an equaliser within 12 minutes as Cleiton Silva capitalised on a howler from Ruathhara and found the back of the net. The Mizo defender failed to clear a long goal-kick from Sandhu inside his own box and Silva was quick to punish him.
The Blues were the more dominant side in the first half and created more goal scoring chances than their opponents. Blasters looked lacklustre and shaky after conceding the goal.
The home team got the golden opportunity to take the lead just two minutes after the second-half kickoff when Bakary Kone brought down Kristian Opseth inside the Kerala box to give away a penalty but Sunil Chhetri's attempted panenka ended up in the gloves of Gomes.
They finally took the lead in the 51st minute through Erik Paartalu's goal. Cleiton Silva initiated the move as he entered the penalty box before setting up Ashique on his left. The full-back delivered a low cross into the box and Kristian Opseth tapped the ball towards the goal and it took a deflection off Paartalu before going in.
The Blues piled pressure on Blasters' defence as they scored the third goal in the next two minutes once again due to a bad mistake of Ruathhara. Albino played a short pass inside his own box towards the defender but he was too slow to react as Cleiton snatched the ball away from him and squared it to the middle. Opseth took a touch and set up Dimas Delgado for a shot and the midfielder guided the ball into the net.
Blasters pulled one back in the 61st minute when Vicente Gomez scored from Facundo Pereyra's free-kick. The Spanish midfielder nudged the ball with the back of his head from the Argentine's curling free-kick which beat Sandhu.
Just when Blasters were slowly regaining momentum in an attempt to comeback into the game, Sunil Chhetri found the back of the net with a clinical header off Harmanjot Khabra's cross. Chhetri rose above his marker Prasanth to head the ball into the net.
The Blues extended their unbeaten streak to five matches this season and the Yellows continue to remain winless.