Perth Glory coach Dave Mitchell will be looking to weed out the defensive concentration lapses that have cost his side so dearly in recent weeks.
Perth lost its third consecutive game, and its first for the season at ME Bank Stadium, as Melbourne asserted its title credentials through a 2-1 win powered by a superb performance by Carlos Hernandez and some Archie Thompson magic.
But Mitchell was left frustrated by the manner in which the goals were conceded.
The opener occurred in just the sixth minute when his defence inexplicably retreated as Hernandez, the most dangerous man in the Victory side, took possession, the Costa Rican allowed to waltz into the box and fire a shot which deflected off defender Chris Coyne for an unlucky own goal.
Having restored parity through a Mile Sterjovski scorcher 19 minutes in, Mitchell saw his side cough up numerous chances to take the lead and was forced to look on as they dropped their guard again in the 67th minute, allowing Hernandez to make another unchecked run before converting Nathan Elasi’s cross.
The coach would be forgiven for thinking its deja vu, however, as it was those type of defensive errors that saw the Glory give up the points in North Queensland last weekend.
“When we’re not dominating games, we’ve got to keep a clean sheet,” Mitchell said after the game.
“It seems to be we’ve got to play really well to score goals and then we tend to switch off a little bit and it is concerning because its happened a few times, so we’ve really got to put out finger on it.”
“It’s bitterly disappointing because we’ve lost our home advantage and the first half I think we played very well, probably could have been a couple of goals up.”
“Second half, we’ve not come out and performed the way we like and we suddenly paid the price for that,” he said.
Mitchell also defended striker Eugene Dadi’s angry response to being substituted towards the end of the second half.
Dadi, a late replacement for the ill Branko Jelic, looked particularly frustrated when asked to make way for youngster Ludovic Boi on debut. But Mitchell was not overly concerned, preferring to see the 35-year-old’s response as a positive.
“Eugene hadn’t played for a little while and he had a good game today,” Mitchell said.
“If he’s not happy being taken off, that’s a good thing.”
“It’s good he’s disappointed. (But) look, if there was a little bit of dissent there, I’ll have a chat with him and talk with him and put my arm around him and buy him a coffee (to sort it out).”
