Melbourne Victory Head Coach Tony Popovic was happy to see a dominant performance rewarded with a 3-1 win over Macarthur on Friday.
Victory returned to Isuzu UTE A-League action in style thanks to a Nick D’Agostino brace and Marco Rojas goal at AAMI Park.
A late Apostolos Giannou goal denied Victory a clean sheet in what was an otherwise impressive display.
Speaking at his post-match news conference, Popovic discussed the game, D’Agostino and provided an injury update.
on the game…
“It was nice to see that a dominant performance collected three points today. We always want it to be better, I want a clean sheet in the end, I wanted more goals because at 3-0 you don’t always get those opportunities to really put someone away. We missed some chances to maybe go another two or three goals so that’s something we’ve got to improve. We’re creating the chances but we’ve got to try and put teams away.”
on D’Agostino…
“Very good. He’s trained so well the last 7-10 days, obviously we’ve had a longer period of training. He’s still a young player that’s never played regularly and he’s still adapting. He’s had a great run, probably three or four months now where he hasn’t missed any training and he’s getting stronger. There’s a lot more to come from him, I’m sure of that, but delighted for him to get two goals.”
on importance of starting busy run with a win…
“It was (important). We really focused on performing well with and without the ball today and trusted that the result will follow that. Now we have to move on quickly. Of course we’re pleased, we’re delighted to win at home, tomorrow we have to recover and start planning for Central Coast and we’ve seen the last two times we’ve played them how tough they’ve been, how difficult both matches have been. We have to travel and perform again and win again.”
on Matt Spiranovic and Rai Marchan…
“With Matty I don’t think he’ll be for Wednesday, still a bit soon. With Rai, we just go day by day with him. He’s working really hard. You can see he’s smiling, he feels physically healthy, he’s put on weight, he’s eating properly, he’s training well. We have to be guided by the medical staff on when we can actually play him and then the next decision is ‘Is he ready to play?’ We’re really looking forward to having him back. “
