Melbourne City coach John van’t Schip was satisfied with his team’s performance in Friday night’s 1-1 draw with league leaders Perth Glory but admitted he was disappointed with City’s marking on set-pieces.
A failure to mark Richard Garcia allowed the former Melbourne Heart man to get onto the end of a Josh Ridson free-kick and head the ball home in the 62nd minute to cancel out Aaron Mooy’s opener.
Melbourne City are enjoying an excellent run of form, going undefeated in their last three games and will certainly draw confidence from their recent results heading into next round’s clash away at Newcastle.
“I am not disappointed with the boys – of course you always want to win but I think in general, we were the better team but they had a few chances as well in the second half,” van’t Schip said.
“[Perth Glory] are a team that can score from a lot of situations and that’s what they did – it’s disappointing that we conceded from a set piece that we were not marking on the right way.
“It wasn’t the best game maybe to watch but it was a step. There is more structure at the moment and players coming back so it’s only getting stronger,” he added.
One of those players in line to make his way into to the City starting lineup is marquee man Robi Koren, who came off the bench in the 69th minute to gain some valuable playing time after a frustrating injury run.
The former Hull City player finally made his debut in last week’s 1-0 derby win and will be eager to work his way into starting XI but the City coach admits although Koren is physically fit, he is missing “game rhythm”.
“He’s getting closer,” the City boss said.
“If he starts, he’s not going to play 90 minutes – there might be a moment where we have to think of starting him still we know that we have the break in-between and we can work really on getting him to 90 minutes and totally fit for the second part [of the season].
“He’s fit, only he misses game rhythm for the coming games but you need to play to get game rhythm so that’s where you have to give and take,” he added.
City’s recent run of results will give them confidence heading into two important away games against Newcastle Jets and Central Coast Mariners respectively and van’t Schip says his team’s preparations will remain the same as they look to secure as many points as possible before the Asian Cup break.
“Every game we have to approach with the same kind of idea, knowing that you can win or lose against every team in the A-League,” he said.
“I don’t believe Newcastle or Western Sydney because they are one of the lower teams are teams that you can win from easily, it’s not like that and they showed that last week by winning against Adelaide so we have to prepare ourselves in the coming days.
“We all understand that we need more points before we go into the break – playing away against Newcastle and Central Coast is going to be hard enough,” he added.