Melbourne Victory coach Ange Postecoglou’s personal assault on a third straight Hyundai A-League crown remains on track despite his side slipping nine points behind leaders the Central Coast Mariners.
Melbourne Victory coach Ange Postecoglou’s personal assault on a third straight Hyundai A-League crown remains on track despite his side slipping nine points behind leaders the Central Coast Mariners.
The Victory played some of their best football this season in a 1-1 draw against postecoglou’s former side, Brisbane Roar, at AAMI Park on Saturday evening but were made to pay dearly for another defensive blunder.
Postecoglou was particularly content with his side’s opening half-hour of play and said his objective remains the same as at the start of the season; to win the title in his first year at the helm of Victory.
“I won’t accept anything less than winning the whole thing,” Postecoglou said.
“First half-hour was as good as we’ve played all year and in the second half I thought we were good as well.
“It’s two points dropped but I’m really happy with the way we played, I’m trying to beat myself up about it but I can’t.”
Victory remain in third position heading into the second Melbourne derby of the season against Heart.
“In terms of ladder position we’re okay at the moment, it’s a really tight league and we wanted to win today to keep touch with the top two,” he said.
“But if we just focussed on that we’d be missing the real goal and that is for us to continue to develop our football so that when it does click during the business end of the season it does click and we’re playing some good football.”
Ben Halloran scored against the run of play on 24 minutes following a vibrant opening display from Melbourne before returning Qantas Socceroo Mark Milligan fired home a belter of a strike in the second half to spare the home side’s heart ache.
Victory have scored the second most goals (18) but conceded 21, the third most in the league, and were on the back foot after Diogo Ferreira’s failed clearance allowed Halloran to duck in for the opener.
“We conceded a soft goal but we created a number of opportunities, probably should have scored another but in terms of our progress it was a step forward,” Postecoglou said.
“That’s (Ferreira) just an individual mistake that didn’t come from structure … that happens on a football field but in terms of our overall structure I thought we were good.
“They’re (Brisbane) still a really good team and they still try and dominate games but I can’t remember them making Coe (Nathan Coe) make a save.
“Michael Theo pulled off a two or three outstanding saves today which suggests to me that our attacking play was pretty decent.”
