Perth Glory’s defensive woes again came to the fore in their 3-0 loss to Melbourne Victory in Bunbury on Wednesday night — but coach David Zdrilic said he was just as focused on addressing their lack of cutting edge in attack.
Glory were not able to find the back of the net in either outing of their two-game pre-season series against Victory in the State’s regions, with their defeat at Hay Park coming on the back of going down 1-0 to the same opponent in Mandurah on Sunday.
Having conceded 125 goals across the last two A-League Men’s season, Glory have not managed to keep a clean sheet across their five hit-outs so far in this pre-season.
While also emphasising the importance of finding more defensive stability, Zdrilic said his side needed to be better at capitalising on their opportunities in front of goal.
“We just didn’t score a goal when we needed to. Melbourne Victory, when they had chances, they scored,” he said.
“It was 1-0, we had a big chance, Blairy (Nathanael Blair) had a header, change of momentum and then they go to the other end and score.
“We need goals to change the game.”
Glory started the Bunbury game with a strong line-up including star striker Adam Taggart and defensive recruits Sam Sutton, Scott Wootton and Brian Kaltak but emerged for the second half with a near-completely different line-up after making eight changes at the interval.
Zdrilic said it was important to give all of his available players the chance to get match minutes under their belt.
“We rotated, we gave minutes to guys who haven’t played a lot of football and that showed — Rhys Bozinovski, a new player, his first minutes in a while, Trent Ostler, he’s been out for a long time, and Taggs hasn’t played for a while,” he said.
“We got overrun in the first half. In the second half, a lot of guys were playing out of position, but I thought we started the second half excellently.
“These are the games we have to have, we haven’t played a game in a long time so it was great to have a two-game hit-out and we know what we have to work on.”
Glory’s pre-season preparations have included a game in the South West in each of the last three years and Zdrilic said they always loved having the chance to connect with their fans outside of Perth.
“These tours, you can’t say enough how much worth they have to us,” he said.
“We appreciate the cities of Mandurah and Bunbury for putting on these events and we appreciate Victory for coming out here.”
