The Indian Super League's resumption after the international break saw a host of entertaining fixtures, but the results were along expected lines as Bengaluru FC continue to set the pace at the top of the league this season.
You can find the basic details and stats from each game here, while this is the fifth installment of this season's ISL musings.
ISL Standings | ISL Results and Fixtures
Bengaluru's merry ways continue
Five games, five clean sheets, four wins, and a draw, sitting pretty at the top of the league with a 100% home record - life is good at Bengaluru FC so far this season.
This Bengaluru run so far has been built on the strength of their defence, and Gurpreet Singh Sandhu's excellent shot-stopping. Their attack has shown flashes of brilliance, but so far, only Hyderabad have had fewer shots than Bengaluru. In five games, Bengaluru have taken 43 shots, but conceded 73. So this run of clean sheets doesn't really seem to be sustainable.
At some point, they will concede goals, Gerard Zaragoza knows that. But for now, he'll revel in the fact that even after playing more than 30 minutes with ten men following Chinglensana Singh's sending off, Bengaluru only conceded one clearcut opportunity to Punjab FC - when Mushaga Bakenga slammed the upright.
More tough tests await as the season goes on, particularly their next game - the big one in Kochi. Bengaluru are a side riding high on confidence, and they are clearly the team to beat at this stage of the season.
The tunnel has been long, but there's hope yet for East Bengal
Oscar Bruzon had arrived only on the morning of the Kolkata Derby on Saturday. Later that day, Mohun Bagan beat East Bengal 2-0, and it looked like a training session for the defending League Shield winners. Three days later, a trip to Odisha followed and this time, East Bengal would consider themselves unlucky to have not taken anything out of that game.
They forced Amrinder Singh into four excellent saves within the opening 15 minutes, and then were undone by a moment of pure Roy Krishna brilliance. The touch, the burst of pace, the slot into the corner - all unerring. Dimi Diamantakos's first goal for East Bengal gave them hope, but then Mourtada Fall did a Mourtada Fall thing by rising highest to thump a header for the Odisha winner.
Bruzon threw his staff and players under the bus a touch at the end, saying the idea of playing a high defensive line - which was ruthlessly exposed by Krishna - was theirs. But credit has to go to him for getting his team to produce a more coherent display than East Bengal have for a while.
Same next time, minus the throwing under the bus, senor Bruzon.
Blasters eke out another result amid unsavoury scenes in stands
Mikael Stahre knows that his Kerala Blasters team have not yet hit the heights they would need to reach if they want to win the shield or the ISL cup. But at this early stage of the season, you can only keep yourself in the vicinity of the leaders, and the Blasters are doing that.
They've got proper gamechangers in attack. Noah Sadaoui and Jesus Jimenez have settled into new surroundings brilliantly, and that is allowing Adrian Luna to ease himself back into the fold following that long-term injury.
They have problems to solve, for sure. They aren't controlling games in midfield, their defensive structure is not the soundest, but they're now unbeaten since that opening defeat to Punjab.
While the football on the pitch can be improved, what happened in the stands during Blasters' game against Mohammedan SC was unacceptable. The Blasters faithful had projectiles landing in their vicinity. Fortunately, there were no casualties or injuries, but such unsafe circumstances for spectators are unfortunate.
Jamshedpur keep finding ways to win
How do they keep doing it? Once again, they had less possession than their opponents Hyderabad, they made fewer passes, they took fewer shots, but none of that seems to matter to Khalid Jamil's Jamshedpur FC anymore.
They are up to second in the standings, after their 2-1 win over Hyderabad. Jamil has created a team that really doesn't have superstars in it but is a functional unit that is so difficult to play against. Javi Hernandez, Rei Tachikawa and Jordan Murray have all contributed in attack, and so has young Mohammed Sanan, but the real star of their season so far has been Stephen Eze, who has been magnificent at the back, in the early stages of his second stint with Jamshedpur.
Can they keep this up? Just like with Bengaluru, there's a concern if the underlying metrics will eventually catch up with them, but till they don't, Jamil can have the fans dreaming.
Improvement can't come soon enough for Mumbai, Goa, Odisha
At the end of matchday five, it is a bit of a surprise to see Odisha FC, Mumbai City FC, and FC Goa occupy position seven to nine on the table. Watch them play, and you'll understand why.
Mumbai City are nowhere near the free-flowing attacking side that won the ISL Cup last season. There's a serious lack of creativity in the side, who have struggled to replace the influence of Alberto Noguera and Jorge Pereyra Diaz so far. Brandon Fernandes hasn't quite settled in following his move from Goa, but Mumbai City will be relieved to have got that first win out of the way, as they beat Goa 2-1 at the Fatorda.
Odisha secured a second consecutive home win when they went past East Bengal, but Sergio Lobera once again expressed concerns about their performance. They were justified complaints as well, as Odisha were kept in the game by Amrinder's brilliance.
Manolo Marquez at Goa has more problems than either Petr Kratky or Lobera, though. Goa aren't defensively solid, they don't create the most chances, nor do they control games well enough. There's a serious identity crisis at the moment, and that has also translated into their fans not flocking the stadium as they once used to. Marquez's start to his reign as India coach might have had some encouraging signs already, but at club level, his Goa side need improvement, and fast.
NorthEast need to produce 90-minute performances
Five minutes into their game against Chennaiyin FC, we saw the best of NorthEast United. Jithin MS played a quick pass into Parthib Gogoi, who carried it into the box, before squaring it for Nestor Albiach to open the scoring. Quick, incisive, on the front foot - everything that Juan Pedro Benali wants them to be.
Six minutes in the second half of that game, we saw the not-so-good of NorthEast United. They didn't clear their lines well enough from a corner. Then from the second phase of play, they didn't play a good enough offside trap and Jordan Gil was allowed to finish for his second of the night. Indecisive, no organised defense, brittle - everything that Benali doesn't want them to be.
This is a recurring theme with NorthEast this season - their ability to combine the spectacular with basic mistakes has held them back considerably. Their second half performances haven't quite matched their first halves, generally. Whether that is a mental switch or better fitness, Benali needs to find a solution to it really quickly.