Melbourne Victory Head Coach Tony Popovic backed his players to bounce back from Sunday’s 3-0 loss to Perth Glory.
Victory suffered its first defeat of the season after Rai Marchan’s first-half red card turned the game at AAMI Park, where Antonee Burke-Gilroy, Ciaran Bramwell and Bruno Fornaroli scored for Perth.
Speaking at his post-match news conference, Popovic discussed the game, the red card and provided an update on injured pair Chris Ikonomidis and Roderick Miranda.
on the game…
“It was one of those days. (Brendan) Hamill went down early so we had to adjust the line-up and then the red card obviously before half-time is a huge turning point. I thought we started the second half very well with 10 men, very good, so I’m definitely pleased with how we played with 10 men, very positive, it was a set play and the boy (Burke-Gilroy) had a wonderful shot and scored and obviously it’s difficult with 10 men. The players put in a great effort, but it wasn’t to be.”
on the red card…
“The referee is five metres away. I don’t think he could’ve been in a better position. He gives a yellow for a reason, exactly what he saw – he saw a yellow card. The players remonstrate which was for quite a while. It always concerns me when it takes six or seven minutes before you go have a look at the VAR so there is doubt. If there is doubt, then stick to your decision. If there’s no doubt, go over straight away, give him a red card and change it. You can’t be on the field for six or seven minutes, you have to look at it 100 times before you get told to go over and look at it yourself. I’m disappointed with that actually.”
on his players…
“They’ll be fine. We had a few things go wrong. When your centre-back goes down very early in the game you’ve got to make some changes, the red card obviously you’re playing with 10 men so everything that could go wrong went wrong, but I can’t fault their effort, I thought they applied themselves very well in the second half. We lost a game and we’ll regroup and go again.”
on Ikonomidis and Roderick’s availability…
“We hope so. When I say hope so it just depends on how they go this week in training. If they’re fit, they’ll be available, both of them, they’ll be available for selection but we’ll see, we’ll see how they go. “
on Matthew Spiranovic…
“Starting is a very different ballgame to coming off the bench. We’ll see how he goes this week. He’s got five or six days of training, ‘Spira’ will let us know how he feels and if he feels good then we’ll have a decision to make.”
