Alen Stajcic is calling for a siege mentality in Gosford after his side were beaten by Adelaide United in what the Central Coast Mariners coach describes as a ‘one in a million result’.
Adelaide came from behind twice to beat the Mariners 3-2 on Friday evening as striker Tomi Juric converted three penalty kicks.
Stajcic’s high-flying Mariners were on course to extend their lead atop the competition leader when Golden Boot frontrunner Alou Kuol arrived off the bench and restored the lead in the second half after Juric had cancelled out Daniel De Silva’s opener.
But two other penalty decisions in the second stanza saw Juric twice bury spot-kicks to complete his maiden A-League hat-trick and deny Central Coast their first A-League win in the City of Churches since 2016.
When asked whether the nature of the defeat would weigh detrimentally on the Mariners, Stajcic was adamant it would not.
“It might go the other way and give us even more fire in the belly,” Stajcic said.
“We already think we’re the underdogs, we know we’re the underdogs.
“I think you’re going to see a pretty fired up team next game.
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“We’re on top of the table because we deserve to be. It doesn’t mean we deserved anything tonight but we were probably a bit unlucky.
“If it is going to take three pens every week to beat us I think we’re in a good spot.”
Stajcic added that he thought the Mariners could have scored ‘four or five goals’ and admitted there was a raft of positives for the ladder leaders to take back from South Australia.
Among those are the fact the club have now scored multiple goals in each of their last five A-League matches away from Central Coast Stadium. Never before have the Mariners been on a longer scoring run in away fixtures.
“I thought we were good, we were dangerous in attack,” said Stajcic.
“We controlled the game a fair bit. They had a lot of good moments as well but I thought going forward we looked the more dangerous, the more likely.
“There are lots of good things.
“I thought we did a reasonable job and it was one of those one in a million games so to dissect it and say we should have done this or we could have done that is a bit tough.”
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