Melbourne Victory coach Ernie Merrick is taking positives out his side’s 2-1 loss to Perth at ME Bank Stadium on Friday night, saying the performance was good, despite the result.
Melbourne Victory coach Ernie Merrick is taking positives out his side’s 2-1 loss to Perth at ME Bank Stadium on Friday night, saying the performance was good, despite the result.
While admitting that it was frustrating that his team had dominated a game for an entire half and was unable to come way with anything, Merrick is confident the results will follow if Melbourne keeps up that standard of football.
“There’s been some good performances, but not good results. As long as we turn it into results that’s the bottom line,” he said.
“You can’t play matches and not score several goals when you’ve got chances like that, otherwise you are going to pay the price and we paid the price. We seem to give away a cheap goal early and that’s not good enough really.”
“We should have got more out of it, at least a draw, if not a win. I’m not going to go away too disappointed, but we have got to get points on the board, we have to win games.”
Melbourne overcame a fifth-minute goal from Perth to equalise through Archie Thompson in just the ninth minute. It then controlled the play for much of the first half and could have had the game in the bag by half time had it been able to find the back of the net with repeated chances.
“We had three strikers and two attacking midfielders, and we dominated the first half created some really good chances,” Merrick said. “I thought that was the best we’ve played in a long time in that first half. We conceded a cheap goal from a set play. Our marking was poor in the box, but we got back on track after the ninth minute, and the second half, a cheap goal, we created a few chances but Perth defended well.”
Merrick said the key was for his players to realise that as the defending champion, other teams would lift against Victory, and that would mean they would have to work harder to achieve the desired result.
“There’s no doubt that teams lift against us and teams play well against us. If our boys play that quality of football for the rest of the season, we’ll do well. We’ll win games,” he said.
Melbourne now hosts back-to-back home matches against Newcastle and Wellington and Merrick said it was vital that his team starts to pick up some wins at home after managing just one point from its opening two Etihad Stadium fixtures of the season.
“It’s always a big bonus for us to play at home. We play really well at home. But we need to get a win at home though, and it-s all about picking up points and results,” he said.
