Arthur Diles was gutted for the hundreds of travelling supporters after his team lost at the last away to Adelaide United in Round 13 of the Isuzu UTE A-League.
Melbourne Victory, backed by a sold-out away bay, produced a second-half fightback at Coopers Stadium, equalising through Matt Grimaldi after Craig Goodwin had put the Reds ahead early on in the Original Rivalry fixture.
Substitute Grimaldi struck again to seemingly complete a turnaround in South Australia, only for his second of the night to be ruled out in controversial circumstances following an extensive VAR review.
The disappointment of the 22-year-old’s thumping hit being chalked off, with Keegan Jelacic determined to have interfered from an offside position, was compounded when Ryan Kitto headed in a 97th-minute decider for Adelaide.
Speaking during his post-match press conference, Diles opined on the impact of the decision to rule out his team’s second goal, sympathising with the travelling Victorians.
“It’s unfortunate for everybody involved in football, because in the end, this is a fantastic spectacle, probably one of the best games of the season, this match and what it brings.
“We have hundreds of fans coming from Melbourne, and you fill out a stadium, it’s not fair on anybody. It’s not fair on my players, first and foremost, it’s not fair on my club. It’s definitely not fair on my fans. And that’s the most disappointing part, because we shouldn’t be talking about a referee and a poor decision. We should be talking about how good that game was, how great the football was from both teams. It was a fantastic match.”
The late loss was Victory’s second in as many games, following last weekend’s narrow defeat to Western Sydney Wanderers at AAMI Park that ended a four-match winning streak.
But with a return to home comforts in Round 14, for a Big Blue clash with Sydney FC, Diles expects his players to come out fighting, just as they did when falling behind to Adelaide.
“The message is, keep playing, keep fighting. It’s easy to come here, and you’re one-nil down, you’ve got the crowd against you, it’s easy to fall down and give up. We don’t do that.
“We fought hard. We got back in the game. We dominated the second half. I felt we did really well. You’ve got to keep playing, you’ve got to turn up again and go again.”
Watch Diles’ full press conference below.
