East Bengal coach Subhas Bhowmick (above) with his players at their home ground on Saturday, while Mohun Bagan players gear up for the big challenge at Salt Lake. Pictures by Gautam Bose

Calcutta: If this is the worst of times for Subhas Bhowmick, this is not the best of times for his counterpart in Mohun Bagan either.

Sunday’s clash of the titans ? in the IFA Shield at Salt Lake Stadium ? is surely the crunch game for East Bengal coach. Having miserably failed to guide the team to the Mission Federation Cup in Goa, Bhowmick offered to quit the job, only to be reinstated by the club. Another mishap on Sunday may change the equation dramatically.

“It has been a bad season for us, and also the worst patch in my career. We have been without a trophy for a long time,” Bhowmick admitted on the match-eve.

The scenario is not quite different in his opponents’ camp, however.

Coach Amal Dutta, incidentally, is going to miss some of his soldiers. Defender Eduardo Coelho is out with injury while Mehtab Hussain, Tomba Singh (midfielder) and Mehrajuddin Wadao (defender) are in the national camp for the SAFF Cup.

This being the situation, it remains to be seen how Dutta is going to plug in the connection between defence and midfield with the likes of Chinmoy Das and Rajiv Ahmed.

The predicament in Bhowmick’s life is nothing short of a struggle for existence in the competition. Having lost the opening match 2-3 to Mohammedan Sporting, East Bengal must win to stay afloat ? though their fate will only be decided by the next match between Mohun Bagan and Mohammedan Sporting.

“I know my team has not delivered of late. But now I am only concentrating on tomorrow’s match and then the Shield. I have all my players and we are trying to regroup and give the best,” said Bhowmick.

Alvito D’Cunha, Bernard Pires, Naseem Akhtar and Debjit Ghosh all were present at the team practice on Saturday morning. The quartet was asked to explain their delay in joining practice and waiting for disciplinary action.

East Bengal always take pride in disciplining the miscreants whenever required. But Alvito & Co.’s presence in the practice only suggests how desperate Bhowmick and the club is about stemming the rot.