New Melbourne Victory coach Jim Magilton has taken a no tolerance approach to any acts of poor on-field discipline among his players, revealing that experienced striker Danny Allsopp is facing an internal sanction for his red card in Sunday’s match against Perth.
New Melbourne Victory coach Jim Magilton has taken a no tolerance approach to any acts of poor on-field discipline among his players, revealing that experienced striker Danny Allsopp is facing an internal sanction for his red card in Sunday’s match against Perth.
Allsopp was sent off in the 77th minute of the match with Victory trailing 3-1, capping a difficult day for the visitors who went on to lose 4-1. He was subsequently given a one-match ban by the FFA’s Match Review Panel.
Three days after the incident, Magilton is still unhappy with Allsopp’s actions and said that under his reign, any player who gets a straight red card would face internal action as well as anything that the FFA Match Review Panel handed out.
“He will be punished accordingly, the less said about that the better,” the coach said. “He will be punished internally.”
Asked what form that punishment would take, Magilton said it was likely the player would be fined.
Victory’s disciplinary record has been an issue all season, with Allsopp the sixth player to be sent off during a match. Magilton said that wasn’t acceptable, and players would be made accountable for any ill-disciplined actions.
“If there is disciplinary issues, then they will be dealt with internally, it will be dealt within the dressing room and it will be addressed by me and then the players,” he said.
“Everybody wants to win a game of football. Danny Allsopp wants to win a game of football, it was a poor tackle, he understands that.”
“He understands he let his teammates down as well. It’s hard enough when you are 3-1 down chasing a game. We are all aware of that. We haven’t got the time to deliberate, we have to push on, we learn painful lessons, but we have to push on.”
Magilton was far from finished with his critique of the players, describing Harry Kewell’s admission that he dived in order to win a penalty on Sunday as “naive”.
“He was very foolish because if an opportunity comes up tomorrow night (against Sydney FC) and he goes over in the box, the referee may just think, ‘Hang on’ whereas it would be more instinctive to point to the penalty box,” the coach said.
“It was very naive from a very experienced player.”
Magilton indicated that Mark Milligan would come straight into the line-up for the match against his former club. The coach admitted there wasn’t an awful lot else he could do ahead of Thursday’s game to turn things around.
“We have to try and get information into them as quickly as possible without expending that much energy. So there isn’t a great deal we can do apart from honesty,” he said.
