After Saturday night’s 2-0 home loss to Newcastle, Brisbane Roar coach Ange Postecoglou admitted that his sweeping changes are hurting the club but believes short-term pain will lead to long term success at the fledgling club.
Jets skipper Mathew Thompson opened the scoring five minutes into the second-half and was involved a short time later when Newcastle was awarded a penalty after Brisbane captain Matt McKay handled in the area.
The two quick goals condemned the Roar to its 11th loss of the season and gave players already low on confidence a further hurdle to overcome.
“Like I said, we are just lacking some confidence at the moment and things aren’t going our way , with the young players we have got unfortunately their not coping too well,” a disappointed Postecoglou said after the match.
“Ultimately that’s where we are at as a club at a the moment and the responsibility for that is mine and mine alone.”
“I’m making decisions that I feel will be good for us long term but at the moment it’s probably hurting us and I take responsibility for that.”
However it’s not all doom and gloom for the Roar with finals still a possibility. Sitting eighth on 26 points Brisbane can still make the six and Postecoglou feels there is no need to write the season off with much sought after finals experience still on offer for his young squad.
“From our point of view there are still incentives to do stuff. The fact that we’ve signed Pieter Collen and we’re bringing in a couple more players shows that we aren’t writing the season off.”
“We don’t want to right the season off we want to be in there right until the final minute.”
“It’s a good lesson for the young guys that you never give up until that last opportunity.”
“Look it’s a hard grind at the moment we’ll all keep working hard, we’ve got a game next week and we’re still in the mix,” Postecoglou said
The Roar travel north next week to take on Ian Ferguson’s North Queensland Fury in an important match for both sides. Brisbane haven’t lost to the Fury this season winning the last encounter 2-0 and drawing 1-1 in the sides first meeting back in Round 5.
With four games remaining in the season Brisbane will play just once more at home, taking on A-league leaders Sydney FC in a fortnight.
