Melbourne Heart coach John Aloisi has focused on the positives from his side’s 1-0 loss to Perth Glory at nib Stadium on Sunday afternoon.
Melbourne Heart coach John Aloisi has focused on the positives from his side’s 1-0 loss to Perth Glory at nib Stadium on Sunday afternoon.
The Heart were consigned to the defeat by a 50th-minute Jamie Maclaren strike which leaves them with just two points from the opening three rounds of the season and a match against top-placed Brisbane Roar next week.
Melbourne were outplayed in the first half as Perth had six shots to two, over 60 percent of the possession and scored the winner just after the break.
Aloisi said his team struggled a little bit in the first half, but added he was pleased with the second half.
“They had the majority of possession, but the chances they were creating were off set pieces, hit the woodwork twice off set pieces and weren’t creating great openings even though they dominated the first half,” he said.
“I thought we started the second half very well and then we started to control a bit more of the game and then they ended up scoring from that long ball … Patrick Kisnorbo went down injured and (Jamie) Maclaren put it away.
“After that I still thought we started to push to try and get an equaliser, started to be a bit more proactive.”
Kisnorbo was substituted after he went down as part of the lead up play that led to Maclaren’s winner and Aloisi said the initial prognosis was a nerve issue in his knee but the full extent would not be known until proper testing was conducted.
The Heart were without star striker Harry Kewell as he continues to recover from a whiplash injury and Aloisi said he was not sure whether he’d be available to face the Roar this week.
“We have to see how he is day-by-day and see if he can get up,” Aloisi said.
“We’d love for him to be available because he’s an important player for us.
“At the moment we’re putting David Williams in there, he’s not really a number 10, even though he did well last week, this week he didn’t get on the ball as much and when he went back out wide he got in good areas and started causing problems.
“We’ll wait and see how Harry goes and make a judgement on that later in the week.”
