Brisbane Roar coach Ange Postecoglou hopes the team’s disappointing exit from the finals race will provide his players with a stinging motivation to improve in 2010-11.
The Roar’s slim top-six aspirations were ended after losing 2-0 to bottom-placed Adelaide United at Hindmarsh Stadium on Saturday.
Postecoglou said most of his players were not at their best against the Reds and should be hurting from the result.
“A performance like that just comes down to whether you just accept it or whether you want to be better and if it that doesn’t hurt you, going out like that, then this group will never get better,” he said.
“It’s more having a look at it and saying ‘We weren’t good enough and we need to be better’.”
“We have been inconsistent which is reflective of our results but I certainly wasn’t expecting us to play like that.”
But despite the loss, Postecoglou said he wouldn’t be making wholesale changes for the team’s Round 27 game against the Glory in Perth.
“I’m not a fan of just giving people a game and to be fair we had 13 poor performers tonight and on form you’d drop them all but you don’t,” he said.
“But I’m not going to just give players a game because it’s a nothing game, it’s still a game for three points, it’s still a game representing our club and we need to put our best team out there and keep building on what we’ve started.”
“So tonight was disappointing but it doesn’t really change the road we are on.”
Roar player Tommy Oar said the players needed to take a ‘good hard look at themselves’ after being outplayed by Adelaide.
“I really don’t think there was enough enthusiasm in the team and desire to go on and win the game when we had to win it,” he said.
“To be honest I don’t really think there was any pressure on us, I think everyone has been writing us off all season so any pressure was put on us by ourselves.”
But regardless of the setback, Oar is predicting a positive future under Postecoglou.
“If you look at the performance last week it shows we are certainly moving in the right direction but I think consistency is our biggest problem at the moment.”
