Newcastle Jets coach Gary van Egmond is confident his side will find the right recipe to win away from home before the end of the Hyundai A-League season.
Newcastle Jets coach Gary van Egmond is confident his side will find the right recipe to win away from home before the end of the Hyundai A-League season.
The Jets slumped to their sixth defeat on the road this season with a 2-1 loss to Melbourne Victory at AAMI Park, with Ryan Griffiths’ late strike not enough to peg back two own goals from Korean defender Sung-Hwan Byun that gave the hosts the advantage.
Van Egmond’s side has picked up only one point on their travels this campaign, but the Jets boss believes that his team is not far from finding their best away form.
“You have spells like this and it does happen, but we haven-t made an issue of it,” van Egmond said.
“Everyone’s preparation has been good so there are no issues for us as far as what we do when we come away.”
“The only people who remind us about our form are you guys, so we appreciate it.”
The Jets dominated possession against Victory, but lacked a bit of quality in the final third and struggled to force much penetration after the 54th minute dismissal of defender Tarek Elrich.
And despite the fact his side lost, van Egmond felt his side dominated the majority of the match.
“When you go down to 10 men it obviously becomes a bit difficult, but for the mainstay of the match I thought we controlled it,” he said.
“Everyone was on the same page tonight and again with a little more ruthlessness in that front third we could have been on the other side of the ledger tonight.”
“We can take a lot of stock out of that performance.”
“It was a better performance than (their mid-week win over) Gold Coast.”
Van Egmond said veterans Francis Jeffers and Nikolai Topor-Stanley should both be fit to return for the Jets next match against the Mariners on the Central Coast, while he remained coy on whether his side would use the January transfer market to bring in some fresh players.
“We will wait and see,” van Egmond said when asked about whether he would sign any players during the window.
“There are a few things we will look at and we will know a little bit more when we get to that.”
