Perth Glory co-owner Tony Sage believes the re-signing of coach David Mitchell for the next two season will give the club stability and enable it to keep its playing squad together.
Sage and co-owner Brett McKeon announced on Friday that Mitchell’s contract had been extended until the end of the 2010-11 season, bringing to an end several weeks of speculation after the Glory took maximum points from just one of their first seven matches.
After losing to Melbourne 4-0 in round seven, Sage had declared Mitchell’s position would be looked at after round 12.
But he said that subsequent wins over Sydney and Wellington and the need for stability as two new clubs entered the competition drove the owners to make a quicker decision.
And he added Mitchell’s re-appointment had already led to one positive outcome, with exciting goalkeeper Tando Velaphi verbally agreeing to a new contract at the Glory.
“What players want, what the owners want and what obviously the coaching staff want is stability,” said Sage on Friday.
“In that regard we’ve decided as owners to re-appoint Dave Mitchell as head coach for the next two seasons.”
“I think that’s one of the big decisions that Brett and I had to make in relation to the coaching position.”
“We’re going to get hammered every week, win, draw or lose about Mitch.”
“And the players too, I’ve talked individually to quite a few of the players and they want to know the direction of the club … they don’t want to wait five weeks for us to advertise and interview a head coach.”
“We want to be able to recruit players. We want to be able to re-sign players.”
“And we believe by cementing the head coach now rather than waiting until round 12 or further, you may have players signing with other clubs, so we want to be able to get that situation over and done with,” Sage said.
Mitchell said, despite the club still sitting in seventh on the Hyundai A-League table, he was confident he could move the Glory forward and prepare it for an assault on this season’s finals.
“It’s great to have the faith of the owners,” Mitchell said. “I’ve been at the club as head coach for a year now and I think we’ve moved forward and I think you can see that in some of the recruitment we’ve done.”
“Tony and Brett have said to me, it’s important we have a holistic view of the club … that we attract players to this club and try and be a force again and I certainly think with the new clubs coming into the league, they’ve made things a little bit harder.”
“But that’s the case we’re in at the minute, so we’re now heavily recruiting moving forward for next season and this season.”
Mitchell took over as interim coach of the club in November last year and had an immediate impact, leading the side to a 4-1 victory over eventual premier Newcastle in his first match in charge.
Perth went on to win another three matches under Mitchell in the last nine rounds of 2007-08, with the 46-year-old former Socceroo appointed as full-time coach for this season.
A poor start to this campaign, coupled with 4-1 and 4-0 losses to Central Coast and Melbourne respectively in a horror two round stretch, saw his position come under scrutiny but Sage and McKeon said they were generally satisfied with Mitchell’s onfield performance, saying a horror run with injuries was partly to blame for the club’s first seven rounds.
