Perth Glory coach Ian Ferguson said his side’s morale is ‘good’ despite going down 2-0 to Adelaide United at Hindmarsh Stadium on Wednesday night and extending their horror run to nine losses from 10 games without a win.
Perth’s ‘effort and commitment’ pleased Ferguson and he said it was one of the better performances of the last six weeks.
Glory were reduced to 10 men in the second half after Naum Sekulovski was given his second yellow card, before United immediately capitalised when Iain Fyfe broke the deadlock from the resulting free kick.
Sergio van Dijk found the back of the net with a diving header in injury time to put the result beyond doubt.
“I say good, but we’ve had another defeat which is not great,” he said.
“I think the effort and the commitment the boys showed tonight was fantastic. Unfortunately again we lose from a set piece which puts us behind the eight ball and we get a man sent off.”
“I couldn’t say a bad word against the boys tonight, I thought they went out there and showed a lot more desire, a lot more commitment than what they’ve showed in the last six weeks.”
While the opening half was far from exciting, Perth held their own against a Reds side that was 13 points ahead of them on the table and the Glory coach said it is a step in the right direction.
Ferguson praised his troops for their tenacious display in the opening 45 minutes with the visitors ‘squeezing’ United and affording them little time on the ball – a tactic used to nullify the Reds’ dangerous players.
“Again, I know it’s a defeat but the signs were positive tonight. We’re heading in the right direction,” he said.
“In the first half we squeezed and Adelaide found it difficult to try and play. We had that energy and that fitness level and we tried to stop them playing. If you let them play, you know they’ve got good players as we’ve seen in the second half.”
“It’s like if you play any team. They’ve got good players and if you let them play they can have you. We know Adelaide has good players and we tried to stop them.”
