Melbourne Victory Head Coach Tony Popovic felt his side showed signs of fatigue in Tuesday night’s 0-0 draw with Brisbane Roar.
Playing a fourth game in April, Victory was held by Brisbane in the Isuzu UTE A-League at AAMI Park.
Victory extended its unbeaten league run to 10 games, but was unable to find a breakthrough despite creating early chances.
Speaking at his post-match news conference, Popovic discussed the game and Jake Brimmer’s substitution following his collision with Jason Davidson.
on the game…
“I’d say probably frustrating in some parts. I think we looked a little bit tired today. It’s been a lot of games in a very short period, four games in a short period, but I think we just needed to score first. In the first half we had some good opportunities and moments in the box, just weren’t really decisive enough to get the lead and then the longer it goes Brisbane has got something to hold onto and they defended well, they’re trying to play on the counter-attack. It’s another clean sheet, but we couldn’t get the breakthrough.”
on lack of decisiveness…
“It can be fatigue. I think we can be a little bit more decisive, their keeper made some good saves, okay we had some good attempts, he got his foot to things, he made some good saves. We kept probing, but we probably looked a little bit flat today for me, but I think that’s going to happen at times, if you score first then the game changes, they don’t have anything to hold onto anymore and then it becomes easier in terms of the spaces that are out there.”
on Brimmer…
“I haven’t seen Jake yet. He’s getting checked at the moment. I think they’re doing the required tests now.”
on freshening up squad…
“First we have to assess all the players and see that everyone has recovered well. It’s four games in 10 days. We’ve done very well, we’ve picked up 10 points in four matches so it hasn’t been bad, we’ve had four clean sheets so it’s actually been good, but when you control the game, you’d like to win the game, that’s the disappointing part, but it’s another clean sheet and we probably just weren’t sharp enough in front of goal today.”
on defence…
“Our players, the fitness is there, they’re backing up a lot more often now than what we had early in the season. Our full-backs (Jason Geria and Davidson) have put in a lot of work so they look a bit tired, but you can see both Jasons did a very good job again today and Ivan (Kelava) is doing a very good job in goals so we look very stable as a team. We want to keep that going on this run, we want this run to continue on Saturday so another tough trip, we know we’re playing well, we’re confident, we’re disappointed we didn’t win tonight, but we pick ourselves up and we go again.”
