Post-Match Reaction | Tony Popovic on the loss to Macarthur

Head Coach Tony Popovic spoke to the media after Victory’s 0-1 loss against Macarthur.

On the Team’s Performance:

“Today, unfortunately, even with a penalty, it just wasn’t to be our day.”

“I thought in the first half, we had good opportunities, but we didn’t play well. We were poor today in the first half but that didn’t stop us having good chances. But yeah, we didn’t play well at all.”

“For the first time this year, I can say that we didn’t play our football and it was a very poor performance in the first half.”

“But we still created opportunities, which shows we can do that. But certainly wasn’t a performance that we should be happy about.”

On Bruno Fornaroli…

“He’s a top player, you know, and we’ve relied on him so much this year and he’s always come through for us.”

“But today in a difficult game, you know he was there, our leader. Of course, he had some good opportunities.”

“He probably played longer than he should have really. So we really need others to step up.”

On defensive performance…

“You always want clean sheets of course, we certainly want clean sheets, but if you have a look where we’re giving away maybe a shot or two again, really the opposition is not really getting opportunities on goal.”

On the remainder of the season…

“You know, it’s our first defeat of the season. So we’ve we’ve done okay. Yeah, we’ve had a good season so far. Undefeated in 15 games. That’s something that I’m sure will be in history books over. I should be proud of that.”

“But now we’ve got to start it again. Put this defeat behind us. We’ve got to acknowledge it. We’ve got to address it and make sure that our performance is better.”

“We need to get a good reaction next week and the performance right and that will give us a chance to win.”