Melbourne Heart’s six losses this season may have all come against the top three teams on the table, but coach John van ‘t Schip remains confident his team has the quality to challenge the best the competition has to offer.
A 2-0 defeat to Adelaide at AAMI Park on Friday means fifth-placed Heart have now lost all their games against the Reds, top-placed Brisbane Roar and third-placed Central Coast so far this campaign.
On that record alone, you would assume they have all the making of a mid-table team, but van ‘t Schip is confident enough in his side’s ability to improve over the second half of the season and bridge the gap.
“If you look at the scores it would say (that we can’t compete with the best). I think it’s more a case of just getting through that. We had a good period and now we’ve lost two games. I’m sure and I have the belief that we have enough quality to compete,” he said.
“We showed against Gold Coast, we drew 0-0, we showed in the game against Brisbane, where we could have gone in at half time a 2-0 lead. (Against Adelaide), we showed that we are a team who can compete with the top four.”
“But it’s true, the results say that we are not at that level yet. But it is something we have to work on, when we get this chance, we have to score them.”
Friday’s result was more a measure of the side’s ability to adapt tactically rather than compete with the elite with Adelaide coach Rini Coolen putting on somewhat of a masterclass with his take on a classic counter attack.
Stand-in Heart captain Matt Thompson feels a measure of how Heart will improve, will be their ability to adapt to tactical changes in games.
“The last couple of games, it’s been disappointing to finish the way we have and to lose those six games (against the top teams). But we need to stick with what we are doing and have faith in what we go out there to do. Obviously we came up against a team who had different tactics in Adelaide. We have to make sure that if that happens again we have a Plan B and a Plan C,” he said.
Van ‘t Schip is hardly panicking after his side crashed to successive defeats for the first time in their history. While he only has five days to get things back on track away to Wellington next Wednesday, he thinks he can make the necessary tweaks.
“We have to recapture the momentum and have a good rest and good talk and prepare ourselves well against Wellington,” he said.
“It’s not that we have to change everything, I think the things we have been doing in the past and today are okay, it’s only frustrating if you have to chase in a game and that was the case today.”
