Melbourne Heart coach John van ‘t Schip isn’t getting carried away with his side’s win over ladder leaders Central Coast, saying his focus has already shifted to next week’s blockbuster against Brisbane Roar.
Melbourne Heart coach John van ‘t Schip isn’t getting carried away with his side’s win over ladder leaders Central Coast, saying his focus has already shifted to next week’s blockbuster against Brisbane Roar.
Eli Babalj struck the only goal of the game in the 50th minute of Sunday’s clash to seal his side’s first win over the Mariners in their history.
The result sees the Heart move up to fifth place on the ladder, three points and goal difference clear of Sydney in seventh with just four games remaining, but van ‘t Schip isn’t looking anywhere further than Friday night’s clash with the Roar in Brisbane.
“I don’t want to count, I just want to look ahead and get as much as possible points and it’s easy to have a calculation up but I don’t think we should do that,” he said.
“The most important thing is to look ahead now – Brisbane now is a very difficult game. They are back in there best way of playing and it’s going to be a hard game up there, so I’m not going to count.”
“For us now, what counts is getting into the finals and of course that’s what I said from the beginning, the higher we can have our position on the ladder the better but for us from the season on we said we want to get into the finals and that’s our first option.”
The Heart were on the wrong end of a 1-0 result last time the two sides met at AAMI Park in January and van ‘t Schip said he altered his side’s game plan drastically to turn it around.
“I think if you look at the game we played today, a few weeks ago we played against them we played very good, but we lost,” he said.
“We had a different kind of game plan, we told them to have the ball more and maybe not what we’re used to do but after playing Central Coast we didn’t win one time, we just did it a little bit different, maybe for the way we played not what you used to see but for us now it was important for us to get the points and I think that was the most important thing today.”
After rising as high as second place on the ladder, the Heart went eight matches without a win before last week’s triumph over Central Coast.
And with a near full squad to choose from, van ‘t Schip is confident his side can continue their good form.
“Very important three points in this last phase after having of course the games before where we lost a lot of points and now winning two in a row and getting a lot of players back it feels good and it’s very promising for the next coming games and I think we’re getting stronger as a team,” he said.
“A lot of competition within the team to get players in the line-up and I think that’s only a good thing.”
“Of course it’s helping getting the players back on time and with the important games coming up.”
