Melbourne Victory Head Coach Tony Popovic fronted the media to share his thoughts on his side’s performance in Wednesday night’s Melbourne Derby replay.
On the uniqueness of the fixture…
“It’s a very strange situation.”
“It was key for us to score first today, I felt. Because psychologically when you look up at the scoreboard it’s 2-0 when they score the first one.”
“It’s different, you know, the players are a little bit forcing things. They’re a bit anxious. It’s not just one nil.”
“It’s very hard to try and tell someone it’s just a of football when you kick-off with a drop ball and it’s 21 minutes, one nil.”
On not coming away with more…
“I’m pleased with the effort. I’m pleased with the commitment. The desire, the chances created.”
“We played a good football match against a very good team, but it’s a shame that overall, we take nothing from the game, but I thought we deserved something from this.”
On still believing…
“We still believe that we can still make this a good season.”
“At the moment, the focus is clearly just on what’s at hand and in the next game in front of us.”
“At the end of the season, we need to review everything and assess the whole season and make sure that next year can be a great year for the Club.”
On facing Perth Glory next…
“We have to (move on), we’ve got a game on Sunday that we have to prepare for.”
“We’ve got a game at home against Perth and you know, the players will be disappointed overall.”
“On the night (Derby), we got a po int in terms of our perspective, and we’ve got a vital game on Sunday here (AAMI Park) again.”
On preparing for Perth…
“Yeah, probably similar (to an ACL week).”
“We came back from Wellington, short turnaround to prepare for this game. We’ve got another short turn around.”
“For several weeks now, every game has been vital for us and important – so that part doesn’t change.”
