Glory midfielder Adriano Pellegrino has called on his team-mates to produce a massive Boxing Day effort against Newcastle to help lift the pressure on besieged coach Dave Mitchell.
Perth is coming off two consecutive away losses, the club having only managed one win from the last nine games to slip out of the top six after vying for top spot in Round 11.
It’s understood Mitchell, in the middle of a two-year contract, will only be guaranteed his position at the club next season if the Glory make the finals this campaign, earning Perth its first appearance in the Hyundai A-League play-offs.
But despite a roster featuring several Qantas Socceroos, former Premier League captain Andy Todd and high-quality striker Branko Jelic, the wheels have fallen off somewhat over the past two months as the club’s struggled to turn some solid displays into wins.
The Glory do enjoy five of the last eight games in Perth, where they’ve only lost two games since Round 4 of last season, and Pellegrino believes a good effort for the coach on Boxing Day against the in-form Jets could boost the confidence and enable the players to capitalise on that advantage in the run home.
“Without a doubt, we’re going to be playing our hearts out to get a good run with the home games,” Pellegrino said.
“We wanted to start it with the Gold Coast and that didn’t happen,” he added referring to last week’s disappointing 2-0 loss to United, where an early Shane Smeltz goal immediately had the Glory on the back foot before Charlie Miller finished things off.
“So now we’ve got to put it behind us for we’ve got a number of home games coming up to win.”
“At the end of the day, it comes down to us. The coaches can only do so much outside the pitch and it comes down to the players on the pitch to pull together do well, not just for our fans and everyone else but also for the coaching staff.”
“For Kenny (assistant Kenny Lowe) and Peter (fitness coach Peter Cklamovski) and Mitch, they do a lot for us.”
“It doesn’t matter what anyone says it comes down to us and it comes down to us picking up results.”
Pellegrino said a poor run with injury and a general dip in confidence had led to the club’s poor run, while ongoing issues with players settling in to the new environment hadn’t helped.
“I know a lot of people expected us to be sitting a bit higher than what we are but … it is difficult when you’re involved in a squad and a bunch of new boys come in,” he said.
“When there’s six or seven new players, you’ve still got to try and comprehend each other and get on and know how each other plays and that and I think that’s still coming together with our side.”
But last season’s Most Glorious Player knows the confidence can only be turned around through grinding out results on the pitch, starting with the Jets, once last on the table but now flying high through four consecutive wins.
“We’ve got to just put our heads together and come up with that self belief,” Pellegrino said.
“We still have some time to turn it around, it’s not like we’ve missed out on the finals completely. There’s still plenty of games to go and we can still pick up ample enough points to make a push for the finals.”
