Goals have quickly dried up for Perth Glory after a scintillating start to the A-League season but coach Dave Mitchell is confident that will turn around as early as this Sunday against the Brisbane Roar at nib Stadium.
The Glory began the season with three wins and two draws from the opening five games that included 10 goals scored by playing an attractive brand of football, but since then they’ve failed to score in losses to Gold Coast, Newcastle and Adelaide.
However, Mitchell refused to point the finger solely at his attackers and is confident that his players have it in them to turn it around and start scoring goals again.
“Up until last week we were one of the highest ranked teams in terms of scoring goals, but we haven-t scored the last three games and it is a problem. We are trying to rectify that and are looking at it, and hopefully we can sort that problem out on the weekend,” Mitchell said.
“There are little things we have looked at about how we can get forward a bit better and create more chances. Last week against Adelaide we created two great chances and the keeper made two world-class saves.
“There’s a few things we’ll look at this week, though, and hopefully we can take it into the game and that it pays dividends. It’s not just the strikers, your defenders can score goals and midfielders can score goals. It’s also up to us to service them and you have to defend from the front, and score goals from all over the park.”
The Glory are likely to make just the one change to the team that lost to Adelaide 2-0 last Friday night despite playing reasonably well against the league leaders.
Scott Neville returns to replace the suspended Jamie Coyne and Mitchell is confident a similar performance from last week on Sunday will provide a win at home against the Roar.
“Obviously we are disappointed with the losses, but the feeling amongst the group is still good. There are a lot of positives there from last week’s game and the boys are eager to get this game on the weekend and take the three points out of it,” Mitchell said.
“Brisbane are a very good side, have started off the season well and played a lot of good football, but it’s up to us to take the game to them and make sure that we win the game at home. We are playing at home and have quite a good record at home over the last couple of years, and that’s what we want to maintain.”
The run of three straight losses makes for concerning reading, but Mitchell’s team could be in second place on the ladder come Sunday night with a victory and provided Central Coast loses to North Queensland on Saturday.
“We are sitting one-point off second on the table,” he said.
“The goal at the start of the year was to be in the top four and we’d like to get into the top two. There’s still another 20-odd games to go yet and there’s a lot of football to be played yet.”
