Melbourne Victory coach Ange Postecoglou said there was no holding back when it came to delivering some home truths to his under-performing players following their 5-0 hiding by Brisbane Roar.
Melbourne Victory coach Ange Postecoglou said there was no holding back when it came to delivering some home truths to his under-performing players following their 5-0 hiding by Brisbane Roar.
Having lost their first two games to open the new A-League season, the Victory are sitting rock bottom of the ladder with a minus six-goal difference to their name, despite the presence of two-time championship winning coach Postecoglou.
Victory were missing three internationals in Archie Thompson, Mark Milligan and Marco Rojas from the side thrashed by Brisbane, but Postecoglou didn’t seem in the mood for excuses, saying he had read the riot act to his side in the post-match review.
“I’m not a ‘sharing the love’ kind of guy when things aren’t going well,” Postecoglou said.
“You can’t kid yourself. When you watch the video of the game and you understand the ramifications of it you just got to be honest and there’s nothing wrong with that.
“We weren’t up to standard and if I had of come in and sprinkled some hugs around the place I think the players would probably be questioning what I’m doing.
“We’re in sport and in sport there’s a scoreboard and there’s a ladder that measures everything we do and right now that’s suggesting that we aren-t up to standard and that’s the honesty of it.”
Although his players have struggled to properly implement Postecoglou’s high-tempo, passing game under real-match intensity, the coach said the team would eventually click.
“I’m here,” he said. “I’m here and I’m not going anywhere and I’m not changing and we’ll get it right.
“That result and the performance wasn’t acceptable under any circumstances so we’ve got to cop that.
“(But) we’re certainly, after two games, not going to throw away everything we’ve worked pretty hard on.
“We’re pretty determined as a football club to get it right and we will do it.”
Postecoglou expects Thompson and Milligan, who were part of the Australian squad in Qatar, along with New Zealand international Rojas to all start against Adelaide United on Friday night at Etihad Stadium.
The coach said there might be as many as five changes to the team as the three internationals come in for injured trio Spase Dilveski, Andrew Nabbout (groin, two weeks) and Danny Allsopp (hamstring) while a further two changes could be made.
And Postecoglou said there would be no easing the international trio back in, despite some long flights during the week.
“They fly at the right end of the plane,” he said.
“So I assume they got pampered up there. To be fair to both of them and Marco Rojas, right from the outset they’ve put their hand up, and they’re not making any excuses, they want to play.
“They understand the position the club’s in and when you’re in this sort of position it’s all hands on deck and they’re very keen to get out there tomorrow night and help rectify our start to the season.”
Postecoglou said young goalkeeper Lawrence Thomas’ position would be reviewed, possibly giving the more experienced Tando Velaphi a chance to play just his third A-League match for Victory.
