Melbourne Victory coach Ernie Merrick is keen to put a ‘horrendous’ road trip behind him and let the club enjoy a run of home games in the run up to the Hyundai A-League finals.
The Victory suffered their third away defeat in as many matches when they went down 4-2 to the last-placed Newcastle Jets at EnergyAustralia Stadium. The loss sees Melbourne slip to third place on the ladder behind Queensland on goal difference.
“We all hope it is only a temporary slump but look at those teams that are down the bottom. All teams on their day can win and in front of their home crowd it gives them that extra lift and there is no doubt Newcastle played well against us,” Merrick said after the match.
“I am just glad this horrendous run of six in the last eight games, six have been away from home and only two at home and I am glad that is behind us. I am really looking forward to playing more games back at Telstra Dome.”
“The run-in for us is six games and five of them are at Telstra Dome and that is probably the best run in we can have. I am still pretty confident we will make the finals.”
Merrick said a decision to disallow an Archie Thompson goal due to a marginal offside call early in the match was a pivotal moment in the loss to Newcastle.
“We scored a terrific goal in the 10th minute but the referee decided not to give it to us on account of the linesman. That would have been a great start for us and was a bit of a turning point,” Merrick said.
“But I think the difference between the teams was Matt Thompson. He got three chances in the box and that third one almost killed us off but when you conceded goals like that and we haven’t done it all year, all I can ask of the boys is to work really hard to salvage some pride and they did that and worked really hard to the end.”
“Newcastle is our bogey team, there is no doubt about that, they have a good record against us.”
“When we made the finals in Season 2 and went on to win the premiership and the championship we came here and were beaten 4-0 and then in the finals series we never lost another game so we learnt a good lesson also and I am hoping it was a good lesson this time and I hope we don’t concede four goals again.”
“We beat them 5-0 in Melbourne so don’t write us off just yet. We have had some good results and we have beaten teams by four goals and five goals we just need to get back to that sort of form.”
