Melbourne Victory W-League coach Dave Edmondson has declared the time for excuses is over after his side lost 0-1 at home to Newcastle Jets on Saturday.
Despite enjoying longer spells of possession than in previous weeks, Victory still found chances hard to come by and couldn’t recover after falling behind on the stroke of half time.
The Victory manager said that while he was pleased with the progress his side was making in performance, the next challenge was to convert narrow defeats into wins.
“I thought a major positive was that we were much better in possession today. By no means was it perfect but that side of things was much better today,” Edmondson said.
“I thought we created more ‘almost’ chances. It was hard to say we created more chances because I don’t think there was that many shots on goal to be honest. We’re getting the ball in the right places, it was just the final ball that was lacking a little bit today and someone actually pulling the trigger and actually shooting. There’s a lot of positives to take [out of the game].
“I’m getting a little bit sick of saying it, looking at positives and moving forward and all that, and to be honest I shouldn’t have to say that because it’s taken for granted anyway, but we need to start winning, simple as that.
“There are lots of positives, and they’re what we did in possession. So we were pleased with bits of that but we just need to get better every week.”
While the scoreline against the Jets didn’t tell the full story, with Victory in ascendancy with the wind in the second half, a cutting edge to unlock the defence eluded the team, who huffed and puffed only for passages of play to break down in the front third – and were still dependent on Melissa Barbieri to bail them out with a penalty save.
Edmondson attributed the defeat to a lack of concentration and energy throughout the whole 90 minutes, as his side often conceded untimely goals before struggling to lift in intensity.
The coach said that in previous weeks it may have been excusable, but he now expects his young side to start finding their feet in the league and being more ruthless against its opposition.
“It’s never pleasant seeing a goal go in. That’s three weeks now, three games where we’ve lost by a single goal and we’ve conceded either in the last minute of the first half or first two minutes of the second half,” he said.
“The end of the first half you can put down to fitness a little bit. Start of the second half you certainly can’t, that’s a concentration thing. I’m not making excuses here, but with a lot of young players here who’ve not played at this level, it’s a big step up and it’s hard to concentrate for 90 minutes at that level.
“At the same time, I’ve said to the players and I say it all the time, whether you’re 15 or 35, whether it’s your first W-League game or you’ve played 100 games for the Matildas, if you’re selected to be on that pitch then it’s your responsibility to be fit, to be concentrating and to do your job for 90 minutes. I probably upped the demands a little bit this week.
“We will get fitter every week, because we’re working at it every week. It’s easier to run out a game when you keep the ball to yourselves a bit better, but we’re still not finishing games the way I want us to. We were on top for most of that second half and with five minutes to go, there’s still times where we’re still looking for a rest.
“The ball’s out of play and we’re kind of stood there waiting to take a throw-in but you’re waiting there for someone to pass you the ball. With five minutes to go at 1-0 down, we need to be grabbing the ball and we need to be getting free-kicks and playing it quicker.
Instead of being ‘nice’ Dave, there was a little bit of expectation this week. We fell a little bit short, but that all goes into next week now, where we’ve got to up the demands again, up the expectations and just work harder.
Edmondson admitted that improvement on the park wouldn’t happen on the park immediately, with issues of fitness and consistency plaguing a young squad that was assembled with little preparation before the season, saying that the club needed to work on re-building a successful culture for future campaigns.
“We’re still not there yet but that’s a 12 month thing. We’ll get fitter throughout this league and throughout this season, but it then needs to carry on. It can’t stop at the end of January and then wait till next September to start back,” he said.
“There needs to be a core of players working on their fitness between now and next September so that whoever is in charge next season isn’t answering questions about fitness. It drives me mad to be honest, that’s one of the things where there’s no excuses not to be fit if you know you’re going to be [or even] want to be playing in this league.
“That’s something we need to develop an attitude and an environment for that encourages that throughout the year.”