With Gold Coast’s dream of winning the A-league Premiers’ Plate over, head coach Miron Bleiberg is approaching the run into the finals with a worst-case scenario that doesn’t seem so bad.
While a win over North Queensland Fury on Saturday would end United’s inaugural season on a high, second spot isn’t guaranteed until Sydney FC and Melbourne Victory face-off on Sunday.
This has lead Bleiberg to say that a third place finish wouldn’t mean the end-of-the-world for the glamour club with a finals berth an achievement in its self.
“Some people debate that finishing third is as good as second from a finals point of view,” an optimistic Bleiberg said on Thursday.
“(Finishing third) you have games at home and you go with the momentum, rather while if you play in the top two, you play one match over two-legs with a break in between and if you win you have to wait (until the Grand Final to play again).”
“So this weekend we’ll go to play open football and try and win with the view that if something goes wrong it’s not the end-of-the-world either.”
“I think the hard work of the season put us the situation that we were guaranteed a finals spot four or five weeks before the end of the season, and for a new club that’s a credit to the boys,” he said.
The mood at Gold Coast training has been low-key this week with the team lying in wait for what’s to come during the finals, however Bleiberg is divided on whether last weekend’s 1-0 loss to Wellington will make the team hungrier to make amends.
“Time will tell, but there are two philosophies of psychology and one will tell you no and one will tell you yes. I’m sitting in the middle and I don’t know, time will tell.”
“But it is character building and sometimes you have to go one step backward to go two steps forward.”
Despite the recent slip-up, Gold Coast has displayed consistent form over the past month and Bleiberg is keen to keep the faith especially with his back-four, maintaining that the formula will be a crucial element in his side’s ambition to win the Championship.
“At the moment I’m very happy with our defence, the last five games we have conceded two goals, both from penalties which is debateable, but that is the definition.”
“I think we are solid at the back now and with Dino (Djulbic) we’ve settled, and with Jess (Vanstrattan) playing well, we are settled for the Championship.”
“I think people don’t realise but I believe that during the Finals Series, defences will talk a lot, and the team who has the better defence will be the team that will go through.”
But a hidden concern for the men in yellow is the current form of A-league top goal scorer Shane Smeltz.
Stuck on 19 goals, the World Cup bound All-White has failed to hit the back of the net since Round 21, when United shared the points with Adelaide in a disappointing 1-1 draw.
Making five scoreless appearances since then, Smeltz will need to find the form he displayed in Gold Coast’s first encounter with North Queensland back in Round 2 when he bagged four in the 5-0 demolition of Ian Ferguson’s men.
