Melbourne Victory skipper Kevin Muscat admits continued poor execution in front of goal has the players feeling the pressure after the 2-2 draw against North Queensland at AAMI Park on Sunday.
Melbourne Victory skipper Kevin Muscat admits continued poor execution in front of goal has the players feeling the pressure after the 2-2 draw against North Queensland at AAMI Park on Sunday.
Melbourne had 28 shots on goal but only converted two penalties in a game which it held a numerical advantage for over an hour. Muscat said the players knew that had let the chance slip to notch a first win for the season and that they needed to be more clinical in front of goal.
“We created enough chances to create chance to win a number of football games. We can only blame ourselves,” he said.
“We get put under scrutiny and pressure by fans and yourselves, but there is no greater pressure put on this bunch of players than from within. We’re disappointed that we didn’t win that game comfortably.”
Coach Ernie Merrick wasn’t as hard on his men, saying the encouraging signs were there, it was just a matter of getting the ball in the back of the net more regularly.
“We had more than enough chances and I guess that’s what the strategy is. It-s to create a lot of chances that are quality inside the box we’ve got to finish them off and prevent the opposition from getting good quality chances,” he said.
“When you are conceding very few and creating as many as that it’s a positive sign,” he said. “It-s just practice our shooting.”
Meanwhile, Merrick was happy with the debut performance of winger Geoff Kellaway, who came on in the second half and won the second penalty to put Melbourne up 2-1 with 15 minutes to play.
“He did well. He’s got tremendous pace. I think he’s got to come up to our level of thinking quickly at the higher level, which he is not used to. His pace makes up for a lot of that, he knocked in a couple of crosses. I thought he did really well,” the coach said.
