A visibly disappointed Miron Bleiberg blamed defensive errors and poor finishing for Oakleigh’s 2-1 home defeat to derby rivals South Melbourne on Sunday afternoon at Jack Edwards Reserve, aware that this result meant Oakleigh were all but mathematically out of Finals contention.
The ex-Gold Coast United head coach found few positives in his team’s second consecutive loss, following their 3-1 defeat to champions Dandenong Thunder the week before.
“I’m not happy. There’s nothing to be happy about. Who should I blame except ourselves?” he said.
“It’s not like I can tell you guys that we should have won by six or seven nil, or that the team was brilliant and it doesn’t matter to have lost… We’re just not playing good enough.”
Bleiberg recognised that his team had crafted their fair share of chances, but lamented Oakleigh’s poor conversion of goal-scoring opportunities.
“I think Oakleigh had some good periods, but we didn’t convert lots of our chances. I’m disappointed we didn’t convert, but I can’t cry about the result. They scored two, we only scored one. Need to put our chances away. That’s it.”
When asked to reflect on his defenders’ critical mistakes at the back, Bleiberg insisted that it was a poor performance rather than complacency in itself that was to blame.
“We were not complacent, we tried hard but we were not good enough. The first goal [conceded] was stupid.
“We’ve had a shaky defence since Michael Boxall left. He was a colossus of the defence.”
The former A-League coach was level-headed about his side’s dwindling chances of qualifying for the Victorian Premier League finals.
“I don’t think there’ll be any run for the finals for us. Mathematically we still have a chance since we have a game in hand but with our current team we are not good enough. We will go for it but we are playing some young boys for the future.”
Oakleigh Cannons travel to Broadmeadow Valleys Park to face Hume City at 3:00pm on Sunday 25 August.