Perth Glory interim coach Ian Ferguson remains confident his group can turn around a run of 10 winless games as early as this Sunday against Melbourne Victory at nib Stadium, with Jacob Burns and Mile Sterjovski to return.
Perth Glory interim coach Ian Ferguson remains confident his group can turn around a run of 10 winless games as early as this Sunday against Melbourne Victory at nib Stadium, with Jacob Burns and Mile Sterjovski to return.
The Glory started the season so well with three wins and two draws from the opening five games, before slumping to a run of seven successive losses before a draw at home with Melbourne Heart.
That appeared to steady the ship for Ferguson’s men, but it wasn’t to be with a 1-0 loss to Wellington at home and then on Wednesday, a 2-0 loss in Adelaide. However, the coach remains confident things will click and he still hasn’t ruled out making the finals either.
“We still have aspirations to get into the finals,” Ferguson said.
“We sit in eighth place at the moment and the team we are playing on Sunday are five points ahead of us so we need to try and concentrate on catching them.”
“We’ve obviously got Jacob Burns coming back and Mile Sterjovski (groin), and I felt the boys gave everything the other night, their effort and commitment was great. There’s no magic formula, we’ve got to keep working hard and believe in ourselves.”
“We are in a bad place and are used to getting beaten, which is no good. I want to get them back to where they were in the first five games of the season when we were winning games, so we have to get back to that mentality. We all know how to win games and we have to get back to that.”
Clearly the Glory’s main problem is trying to score goals. Defensively Perth has a pass mark coughing up just 20 goals in the 10 games, hardly terrible considering none have been a win, but only two goals in that period themselves has been unacceptable.
Creating chances hasn’t been a problem for the likes of Michael Baird, Sterjovski and co up front, but the goals just aren’t going in, which is why Ferguson remains upbeat because he feels the positives will continue to grow when the goals eventually come their way.
“We can’t score a goal, that’s been my problem. Against Melbourne Heart we probably dominated the game in patches where we could have scored goals. It was the same the other night as well when we dominated possession but just can’t get that final ball in the net,” Ferguson said.
“The last three or four games have been good and positive. I say good and don’t mean results-wise, but there has been a difference in personnel changes. I’d like to keep the same team if I could week in and week out, but that hasn’t been possible.
“There has been some positives with young kids coming through. Tommy Amphlett was fantastic again the other night. We have to keep moving the players about until we get the right formula.”
Obviously a run of 10 winless games leaves any football club feeling the pressure, but Ferguson has been pleasantly surprised to see the Glory players remain as upbeat as possible and he hopes they are soon rewarded with a drought-breaking win.
“This isn’t great for any of us right now. We are all hurting and doing everything we can to get ourselves out of it. I’m pretty positive that the guys have been good and positive,” Ferguson said.
“There has never been one time that I’ve gone into the dressing room and found stunned silence. They are always upbeat and we have to take that energy and belief out there that we can get out of this. I do believe that we have the players that can do it.”
