Perth Glory skipper Jamie Coyne believes his side’s confidence hasn’t been irreparably damaged by its big loss to Sydney last round. But, despite the disappointing result, Coyne feels there were plenty of positives to come from the match.
The Glory were on the wrong end of a 5-2 thrashing by the Sky Blues, shipping four goals after Dino Djulbic was sent from the field in an early incident that saw the club concede a penalty to the New South Welshmen.
But, despite the disappointing result, Coyne feels there were plenty of positives to come from the match, especially as both sides were locked at 1-1 before Djulbic’s indiscretion.
“I think up until that penalty we actually had control of the game and were starting to get on top of Sydney,” Coyne said.
“(At that point) we were pretty confident we could score again and get something out of the game, either a win or a draw.”
“I s’pose the way we’re looking at it is that we played Sydney, who are actually doing pretty well result-wise, and we don’t feel that they’re a better team than us.”
“We have (also) learned from it (in) the second half, that we can actually keep the ball and create chances with 10 men.”
“Obviously we haven’t got the points on the board yet, but the positive is we’re playing quite well, we’ve just got to stop leaking goals and making silly mistakes and if we can do that, it’ll be good.”
Coyne also believes the scoreline was not indicative of there being a massive gap between the Hyundai A-League’s three unbeaten sides – Melbourne, Adelaide and Sydney – and the rest.
“I think that we’re only three games in,” said Coyne. “Obviously Melbourne have started very well, playing really good football at the moment (and) Adelaide have got some results as well.”
“I think Melbourne are playing the best football of the lot and have outplayed the teams they’ve played against. I think they’ll be one of the top two when the season ends.”
“(But) the others, I don’t feel that they’re any better than anyone else, they just don’t have the results at the moment.”
“Over a season I think there’ll be others at the top as well.”
The Glory’s lightweight defence has been further weakened for their upcoming clash with Queensland, though, after speedster Jimmy Downey left training on Monday with what appeared to be a calf injury.
Downey will join Djulbic and former Socceroos’ defender Hayden Foxe (foot) on the sidelines for this weekend’s game; although it seems likely coach Dave Mitchell will recall Jamie Harnwell for this clash as the veteran defender/forward has recovered from a hip injury.
