Brisbane coach Ange Postecoglou and captain Craig Moore have made a cuttingly frank assessment of their side’s 1-0 loss to Melbourne on Saturday night, with Postecoglou saying there were no positives to take out of the game.
The Roar created a bevy of chances throughout the match, especially the second half, but were unable to breach a miserly Victory defence spearheaded by skipper Kevin Muscat and recalled keeper Mitchell Langerak.
The lack of clinical finishing meant a sober affair at the post-match press conference, but it was the lapse in concentration in the eighth minute that saw Archie Thompson head home the winner that earned Moore’s ire.
“Archie’s a proven goal scorer in the A-League, and for him to get that much space in the box is quite alarming, we need to do better,” Moore said.
“We got punished for poor defending, once again.”
“We’re working extremely hard at training, but it’s just disappointing when you see the same mistakes, week-in, week-out.”
“You go through all our goals this season and the bad thing is that teams don’t actually have to create against us.”
“No longer can I sit up here and make excuses, we are where we are because of the silly goals we give away.”
Postecoglou was similarly downtrodden, suggesting there was little his side could take away from the loss, even though playmakers Charlie Miller and Henrique impressed in their return from injury.
“If we got played off the park, you hold your hand up and say we just weren’t up, we weren’t good enough, all those kinds of things,” Postecoglou said.
“But there can’t be any positives out of losing at home when you’ve been the main cause of that.”
“No positives, not Charlie (Miller), not Ricky (Henrique), not Tommy (Oar), not anything.”
The Roar currently occupy eighth spot on the ladder and could slip as low as ninth depending on how Newcastle fare on Sunday, but Postecoglou was quick to rubbish the notion of writing the 2009/10 season off.
“That would be a huge, huge copout,” he said.
“The punters are still paying their hard earned, and I’m not wiping away anything, and the players won’t be allowed to either, but I’d be surprised if that-s their thoughts.”
“I’m just hugely disappointed about the whole outcome today, I thought it was a great opportunity for us to make a statement and kick on … and we kind of blew it.”
