A defiant John Aloisi has no plans to resign despite his Melbourne Heart team slumping to yet another loss on Saturday night.
A defiant John Aloisi has no plans to resign despite his Melbourne Heart team slumping to yet another loss on Saturday night.
The Heart remain winless and bottom of the A-League table after a 3-1 loss to the Melbourne Victory in the derby at AAMI Park.
A 20th-minute red card to defender Patrick Kisnorbo turned the game after the Heart had made a decent start, with Mitch Nichols netting a brace for the victors.
Aloisi said he still felt he was he right man for the job, despite the Heart’s 16-match winless run which stretches back to February.
“I can only do my job. If the board don’t think I’m good enough to take this club forward then they’ll decide,” he told reporters.
“At the moment, I think I’m the man for the job and I’ll try my hardest with the other coaches, with everyone in the team, with the players to bring this club to where we think it should be.”
Aloisi believes his team have been competitive enough on several occasions this season.
“If we were getting killed and I thought that I wasn’t good enough for this job, I’d be the first to put my hand up, but we’ve got a team that can beat anyone in this league,” he said.
“Tonight, we were on top of them, the red card ended up costing us.”
Aloisi slammed referee Ben Williams for his performance after Kisnorbo’s sending off for a reckless, studs-up challenge on Connor Pain.
He said it was ‘debatable’ whether it was a red or yellow card, but hit out at Williams for his inconsistency.
“We don’t want our defenders going to ground there, but also not understanding the consistency of the referee,” Aloisi said.
“When Connor Pain goes in with studs up on Mass Murdocca, I don’t know if there’s too much of a difference.
“In my opinion, the referee had a terrible night. Didn’t control the game at all.”
Heart goalkeeper Andrew Redmayne is safe for now despite his woeful first-half clearance costing his team the opening goal, Aloisi added.
