Melbourne Victory Head Coach Tony Popovic felt his side deserved three points after being held to a 1-1 draw by the Central Coast Mariners.
Nick D’Agostino gave Victory a first-half lead in Gosford on Wednesday, but Nicolai Muller equalised late on for the Mariners in the Isuzu UTE A-League.
Victory had most of the chances – it had seven shots on target to the Mariners’ three – but missed chances proved costly.
Speaking at his post-match news conference, Popovic discussed the game and D’Agostino, plus the referee’s decision not to send off Mariners defender Lewis Miller in the first half.
on the game…
“Overall, we’re disappointed obviously to lose points in a game that we should’ve put away. We should’ve been further in front than 1-0 and then at the end Central Coast kept coming and threw everything at us and got the equaliser. It’s a tough place to come and when you’ve got your chances, you’ve got to try and put them away and put them out of the game and then in the end under some adversity we’ve got to dig deep sometimes and try and hold them out. But when I look at the whole game, it should’ve been three points for us.”
on Miller…
“It was a red or a yellow. It was one of those two. We’ve seen some red cards that we’ve received this year which were decisions that are more 50-50 than that. That’s a clear yellow card, clear yellow. I don’t know, I haven’t seen it in terms of could it have been a red, but it’s from behind, it’s a yellow, he goes to make a decision and he changes his mind on that decision. They’re things that change games. It’s 10 men for them in the first half, we’re on top, he stays on the field, which is hard for me to understand really.”
on referee changing his mind in Miller decision…
“I know what I saw from the sideline and it’s just happening far too often with decisions when I think of the yellows and red cards that we’ve received this year, there’s no doubt it’s out of the ref’s pocket immediately and decisions are made and this one, I don’t know how much clearer a yellow card can be. From behind, that’s a yellow card and I don’t know why he changed it, I’d love to know why.”
on D’Agostino…
“He’s doing very well. He’s in some very good form, scoring goals, good young player, good prospect, so he’ll get better and better so happy with him. I was happy with the performance overall today and just towards the end we had to hang on, we didn’t and we should’ve really put them away for the type of performance we delivered here away from home.”
