Melbourne Victory pair Archie Thompson and Danny Allsopp have not yet been told how new coach Ange Postecoglou will use them next season.
Melbourne Victory pair Archie Thompson and Danny Allsopp have not yet been told how new coach Ange Postecoglou will use them next season.
Postecoglou, the two-time Hyundai A-League championship winning head coach with the Brisbane Roar, has been in charge at Victory for almost two weeks.
Thompson and Allsopp are both foundation players at Victory, but their respective futures remain unclear.
Speaking at the launch of Melbourne’s friendly match with Olympiacos on Saturday week, Allsopp admitted that he had yet to speak to Postecoglou about his role for next season.
“There’s no guarantees for anyone I guess but hopefully I’ll have a fair shot at (playing), same as anyone else and get judged by what I actually do on the park,” Allsopp said on Wednesday.
“That’s all I can ask for.”
Victory have already dismissed veterans Roddy Vargas, Tom Pondeljak, Grant Brebner and last season’s player of the year Ante Covic but Allsopp is not concerned that he could be discarded.
“Players have got contracts and (Postecoglou has) got work with the squad that we’ve got and we’ve got a lot of places (still to fill),” Allsopp said.
The 33-year-old was a member of Melbourne’s inaugural squad and has notched 116 A-League matches for Victory, interrupted by a short period playing in Qatar and the USA.
Last season was one of Allsopp’s toughest as he started just five games and scored one goal.
His old forward partner, Thompson, had a slightly better season but only managed six goals in 27 games as Victory finished in the bottom three of the A-League.
The friendly match with Olympiakos will be the first chance to see how Postecoglou has influenced his new team and Thompson has compared the former Brisbane boss to one of his earlier coaches at Melbourne.
“In a way he actually kind of reminds me of Ernie Merrick because Ernie Merrick wanted us to play an attacking type of football, which is when you get the ball to always look forward and we’ve been doing a lot of that at training,” the 33-year-old said.
“And you can already see… how much our training sessions have improved.”
Despite no guarantees from Postecoglou that he will play, Thompson argued that the new coach will not be able to ignore his experience.
“I don’t think you can count just on youth, obviously there’s got to be a blend of youth and… experience,” Thompson said.
“So I think if you perform well and you train well you’re going to play.”
