A disappointed Melbourne City boss John van’t Schip says his side only have themselves to blame after squandering a two-goal lead against Newcastle Jets on Friday night.
City appeared to be cruising after goals to Aaron Mooy and Stefan Mauk gave them a comfortable advantage before a stunning second-half comeback from the Jets turned the game on its head.
A goal from Ben Kantarovski and a brace to Serbian Milos Trifunovic completed the turnaround for the visitors who finished all over a visibly fatigued City outfit.
REPORT: Jets go top after stunning City
Van’t Schip admitted City failed to capitalise on their dominance in the first half but believes his side invited pressure on themselves in the second half.
“Of course (It’s disappointing), leading 2-0 and going into half-time. You lose those kind of games, if you’re not disappointed then something is wrong,” van’t Schip told Fox Sports.
“We just stopped playing. If you lead 2-0 then you should continue playing. We invited them in and we didn’t move anymore.
“We did it ourselves. We went backwards, we stopped playing, stop moving. They came into the game.
“In the first half we had 70% possession and at the 65 minute mark it was already 50/50 again. That shows how much we lost our game.”
Van’t Schip injected Corey Gameiro and Wade Dekker off the bench in the second half but the move appeared to backfire with the Jets wrestling the momentum in the final thirty minutes.
GALLERY: Melbourne City v Newcastle Jets
Dekker gave away the crucial penalty for handball with 15 minutes remaining but the City boss insisted the changes were necessary given the state of the game.
“No, David (Williams) was gone. We knew he had an hour in his game, we had to change him,” he said.
“Steve (Kuzmanovski) the same story, we changed him for Wade (Dekker). We needed fresh legs at that moment.
“It didn’t turn out the way we wanted. Of course we want to change it but it didn’t happen.”
City travel to Adelaide to tackle the Reds in Round 5 next Friday night.
