Melbourne Victory coach Ernie Merrick said the 3-1 loss to the Glory shows his side cannot rely on playing just one half of football to get a result.
Melbourne Victory coach Ernie Merrick said the 3-1 loss to the Glory shows his side cannot rely on playing just one half of football to get a result.
It may have been second versus last on the table, but Merrick was not impressed with a first half where his players dropped their heads after Perth’s Eugene Dadi scored twice in the 18th and 22nd minutes.
And, although happy with a much-improved second-half, where the Victory pulled a goal back through Ney Fabiano, Merrick felt the Glory deserved the three points after the restoring the two-goal cushion through Adriano Pellegrino’s late wonder-strike.
“It’s an old cliche but it was certainly a game of two halves and we conceded two soft goals by our standards,” Merrick said.
“We didn’t play our inter-passing game but the second half we played our quality of football and kept the ball really well.”
“We scored one goal after 10 minutes into the second half, thought we’d go on with it.”
“We took off a defensive player and played an attacking player and created our chances, we just didn’t score with them and they scored a terrific goal and we tend to cop those every now and again … that killed us really.”
Merrick refused to blame the loss on the absence of star striker Archie Thompson, who was a late withdrawal from the starting XI after his knee failed to recover from a knock at training earlier in the week.
“We thought he’d come good but it never quite eventuated,” Merrick admitted after Thompson was left a forlorn figure attempting to keep pace with the other substitutes running around the edge of the pitch.
“We’re not a one-man team, we’re pretty happy to have Fabiano and Fab scored a goal and if it comes down to one player playing and not playing, we’re not going to do well in the finals.”
But Merrick said the club’s hectic travel schedule probably impacted on his side after the Victory followed up a long road trip to Wellington last week with the flight to Perth for this match.
“The last five games, we’ve played one game at home (so) it was a credit to the boys, they fought back and they fought really well in the second half.”
“It’s not been a kind draw but we just got to go on with it,” he said.
