Perth Glory captain Jacob Burns says the players have to take a lot of the responsibility for Dave Mitchell’s decision to step down as coach on Tuesday.
In a surprise move by Mitchell, the former coach has opted to move into a football director role at the club after four consecutive losses saw the Glory slump from the top of the Hyundai A-League table to outside the top six.
Mitchell’s assistant, former North Queensland coach Ian Ferguson, takes over the role at the Glory, his first match in charge ironically against the Fury on Friday night.
And, he’ll be expecting a much improved performance from his men after they copped a serve from owner Tony Sage on Tuesday.
“I think the playing group that Mitch has assembled is a very good playing group but you just can’t lose four games in a row,” Sage had said.
“I think they feel very disappointed in themselves for letting this happen.”
Speaking on Wednesday just before flying to Townsville, Burns agreed.
“We do,” was his simple answer when asked if the player’s felt responsible for Mitchell’s demise.
“I think we have turned in a couple of poor performances and unfortunately in the game we’re in, Mitch has suffered from that.”
“There is great expectation here this season as well as last and moving forward to the future and unfortunately he has gone upstairs. There’s been personnel change but that happens in the game of football.”
“I’m very pleased they’ve kept him on because he’s turned this club around.”
“It was a bit of a surprise for a lot of the fellas, but we’re focused on the job at hand,” he added, when asked if the events would distract the players as they prepared for the Fury clash.
“I just hope we can turn it around and go on a run like we did at the start,” he said, referring to a superb five-week opening to the campaign, where the Glory went unbeaten, scoring ten goals in the process.
Since then, they have scored just once during the four-game losing streak, although finding the back of the net this week won’t get any easier as star striker Robbie Fowler hasn’t returned from the UK after heading home during the FIFA international break.
Fowler was due back to play against the Fury but has extended his stay as a result of ‘personal problems’.
Burns, though, was intent on putting to rest any speculation Fowler may not be coming back to Glory after the events of this week.
“He’s back on Tuesday, that was already organised and all planned before Rob came on board and I think the club would have liked to keep it quiet because obviously you don’t want the opposition to know which players are playing, who’s not travelling and so forth,” Burns said.
“That was all planned, he’s gone back in the FIFA break, he’s back on Tuesday and that’s all there is too it.”
