Melbourne Victory coach Ange Postecoglou said his side will continue to adapt to his style ahead of the start of the Hyundai A-League season.
Melbourne Victory coach Ange Postecoglou said his side will continue to adapt to the ex-Brisbane mentor’s style ahead of the start of the A-League season in October.
Speaking at Gosch’s Paddock on Tuesday, Postecoglou said it would be an ongoing lesson as his Victory squad begins to ingest the methods that took the Roar to historic back-to-back premierships.
“Within the whole group of the boys that have been retained, there’s been a real appetite and a wanting to learn, because we’re doing things differently than what they’ve been done in the past. From that point of view, that’s what I’ve been looking for,” Postecoglou said.
“Because if there’s any resistance there (from the players), it’s not good for them and it’s not good for us.
“From day one, they’ve really embraced the fact we’re creating an environment, a new way of training, and I’m really happy with the way they’ve gone along generally as a group.
“There’s no point me looking at individuals right now, we’ll look at that when the season starts, but right now, it’s about the collective.”
On the A-League’s recent coup signing, Alessandro Del Piero to Sydney FC, Postecoglou had nothing but praise for both club and player after the Juventus legend put pen to paper on a move to Australia.
“(It’s) absolutely fantastic. It astounds me that people still look for negatives, there couldn’t be a better signing. He’s a class act on and, more importantly, off the field,” Postecoglou said.
“Sometimes we get it wrong. We go for people who can maybe produce on the field, but off the field, they aren’t prepared to embrace our football and our country and our culture. I’ve got no doubt he’ll do that, hats off to Sydney in terms of that.”
Defender Mark Milligan and star signing Marcos Flores were separated from the group for part of Tuesday’s training session, but Postecoglou said there were no injury concerns with the pair, insisting they will re-join the group’s Thursday run out.
Also, Victory skipper Adrian Leijer is well on the recovery path from hip and groin complaints, Postecoglou confirmed.
“He hasn’t really missed a session since last Tuesday we played, so he’s building slowly,” Postecoglou said of Leijer, who has missed the best part of six months of football.
“The plan is hopefully get him some game time, maybe in the next couple of A-League friendlies we’ve got, hopefully he gets through that and we’ll see where we go from there.”
