Central Coast coach Graham Arnold was pleased with his side’s performance despite the Mariners going down 1-0 to Melbourne Heart on Sunday.
Central Coast coach Graham Arnold was pleased with his side’s performance despite the Mariners going down 1-0 to Melbourne Heart on Sunday.
Eli Babalj’s strike in the 50th minute proved the difference between the two sides in a result that sees the Mariners’ lead at the top of the table cut to just three points.
It was also Central Coast’s third loss in their past five games after going an incredible 15 unbeaten, but Arnold wasn’t hitting the panic button just yet.
“I think it’s about the performance and if you want to look at the big picture that’s three losses in 19 games,” he said.
“If you look at the big picture it’s still a great performance and as I said to the players after the game ‘let’s just move on with it’.
“When you’re playing well, everyone’s fit and healthy and let’s enjoy the next couple of months together and forget the table.
“We’re in a fantastic position for top two and our goal at the start of the year was top six so we’ve achieved our goal and let’s just enjoy it.
Arnold will be disappointed his side didn’t get at least a point from the match with English debutant John Sutton spurning a spot kick shortly after the Heart took the lead.
Sutton’s strike hit the post and bounced out and Arnold was left bemused as to why Patrick Zwaanswijk didn’t take it.
“I’ll ask that question behind closed doors because Patrick is normally our penalty taker.”
“I haven’t seen him take a penalty so I was surprised. At the end of the day I’m a firm believer in whoever feels confident should take the penalty so John was confident enough to step and take it and you need to be brave to do that.”
Arnold was also left confused as to why the game was played during the day and not at night time with the mercury hovering around 33 degrees throughout the duration of the match.
“I don’t understand why the game had to be played at 5pm today,” he said after the match.
“I think when we were down here last time we talked about the good spectacle that our game was against Melbourne Victory and I truly believe that the level of A-League has risen substantially, especially with the night games.”
“The day games are very very hard for the players, they were extreme conditions out there, very tough. You saw the tempo sometimes drop, if it’s a night game and all the games are played at night – we’re the only game today so it would have been nice to kick off at 7 o’clock in better conditions.”
“You’d like the games played at night time. Every game you watch at night time the spectacle is so much better, the players have so much more energy and the intensity is so much quicker rather than day time kick offs – 5 o’clock in the middle of summer is a bit hard.”
