Melbourne Heart coach John Aloisi has admitted that a meeting with Heart board members took place, but insists that his job is not in jeopardy.
The club are winless in seven attempts this season, and with a run of five consecutive losses, the pressure has well and truly mounted on Aloisi.
The Melbourne Heart head coach has managed to push the issues concerning his job security aside over the last couple of weeks, and he says the board haven’t given him any indication his job is under threat.
“I’ve actually sat down with the board of members and they’ve been very helpful in saying ‘What do you need? Is everything okay? And how are the players going?’ and it’s just general conversation like we would have last year when we were having a good time,” Aloisi said.
“The board have been by my side the whole way through good and bad and they haven’t mentioned anything about my future at all.”
Another potential problem that has arisen for Aloisi has been the return of his predecessor John van’t Schip as “technical manager”.
However Aloisi has cleared up van ’t Schip’s role, explaining his re-emergence at the club has not had an adverse effect on his ability to carry out his job.
“Having John van ‘t Schip also come back yesterday, just chatting away with him, he’s been through all this before and he knows what it’s all about and having a mentor like that helps me, and it will help the players as well because we’ve got an older head around,” Aloisi said.
“He’ll be here for four weeks which is good because he’s here every day.
“We can discuss training together, after training what he saw from the side, and then also discuss the opposition, players that he’s actually trained before, and a lot of that is helpful for me.”
Aloisi has also come under pressure from fans, with chants from the stands calling for his head.
However, he seems unperturbed by the opinions of the supporters.
“I’m sure that there’s unhappy people and we’re unhappy with the way we’ve started the season,” he said.
“We obviously want to be winning and we’re doing everything possible to win games.
“This is a tough time for us as a club, we really need to stick together and get through this period and we’ll come out the other side stronger there’s no doubt there.”
With so much speculation and negative energy around him, Aloisi has found a way to get away from it all, having learnt to deal with it in his playing days.
“Look to be honest, I copped a lot as a player,” he said.
“I’ve been in pressure moments as a player and I think that’s held me in good stead, and I know how quick it can turn around.
“Football is a funny game, you know one day that people aren’t liking you and next day you turn around very quickly and people liking you again.
“I don’t go home and talk about it with my kids. I’ll go home and read books to my kids, that helps me switch off a lot anyway, I do it every week.
“Last night I was at my kid’s sports carnival and other than a few phone calls interrupting the sports carnival for work, it was actually good to see my kids compete and enjoy themselves.”