Brisbane coach Ange Postecoglou says his side will be unable to re-find their winning consistency so long as they continue to concede the first goal and give the opposition the chance to sit back and make defence their sole priority.
Brisbane coach Ange Postecoglou says his side will be unable to re-find their winning consistency so long as they continue to concede the first goal and give the opposition the chance to sit back and make defence their sole priority.
The Roar’s 1-0 loss to Newcastle at Suncorp Stadium on Saturday saw both Postecoglou and captain Matt Smith arrive at the post-match press conference visibly frustrated by a failure against the side that had began the night in second-last place on the Hyundai A-League points ladder.
Brisbane were stung in the 23rd after a promising start to the match, and from that point forth the visiting Jets were content to play deep in behind the ball and back their goal-front congestion to prove the winner.
“We expected them to try to be strong defensively and catch us on the break here and there. We controlled the game pretty much for the whole 90 minutes. ” said Postecoglou.
“But when you do concede a goal and end up chasing the game, it allows the opposition to frustrate you, and I guess they did a good job of that for the 90 minutes.”
“The couple of times we broke through there were a couple of iffy offside calls, so you get frustrated even more.”
As a side who have gone from the team that returned the most clean sheets in 2010-11 to the team that hasn’t had a clean sheet in 11 matches, the focus sits largely on the ability of Smith and his back-four partners to carry their concentration.
But even pitted against the determination of the Jets to defend their goal, Brisbane’s failure to net an equaliser in an hour of attack will put the attackers under the microscope as well.
Ange Postecoglou said the one-game suspension of the competition’s leading scorer, Besart Berisha, was unlikely to have played a part,
“It’s hard to say (how our attack is going) when you’re chasing games. When you allow the opposition to sit back – and they have every right to – it’s pretty hard to judge how we’re going,” he said.
“At the end of the day, we had enough of the ball and enough time to fashion a couple of chances, but we probably weren’t as decisive in that front third as we could have been.”
“Everyone (played) ok. It’s got nothing to do with structure or the way we play; we dominated possession, played in their half, I think (our goalkeeper Michael Theoklitos) had one save to make in the first half and was virtually a spectator in the second… it’s not about individuals.”
