Melbourne City Youth may have defeated Brisbane Roar Youth 3-2 and scored some sumptuous goals in the process, but that wasn’t enough to satisfy high standards coach Joe Palatsides.
Sitting in equal first spot alongside Perth Glory, the youths’ mentor believed that despite the result, his side had shown better team performances throughout the season.
“I’m happy we got the three points, and I’m mainly happy we got the three points because that was probably our worst performance for the year,” Palatsides said.
“Today, we were well down below what we expect our boys to be, and i think it showed, but at the end of the day they were good enough to get a result.
“I always tell the boys that a good sign of the team is that even if they’re not playing their best, they still carve out a result, that they can fight through their bad days.”
Despite a number of class individual performances and short bursts of exhilarating football, the 49-year-old bemoaned a lack of coordinated pressing and combination plays that has been the side’s hallmark throughout the season.
“We started really well, we won the ball in really good areas, in dangerous positions, which we should have really capitalised on but didn’t,” he said.
“Overall, to be able to continually play at a high level is crucial for us and for the players to learn.
“Patches is good, but it’s not good enough when you talk about team performance – we didn’t play long enough the football that we wanted to.”
#FNYL REPORT – @WadeDekker starred in the heat as @MelbourneCity defeated @brisbaneroar 3-2 in NYL clash #MCYvBRI | http://t.co/EEwZK51ayG
— The Corner Flag (@CornerFlagOz) December 28, 2014
Palatsides did reserve praise for Northcote City man Wade Dekker, who scored his second brace of the season to rubberstamp his credentials as a player to keep an eye out for in the future.
“Wadey’s had a great year, and he’s making this year really count for himself, scoring goals and performing well,” he said.
“John van’t Schip brought him up to the senior squad a few weeks ago and that showed how well Wadey’s done.
“Having said that, for Wadey to play well, the whole team has to play well and we have played well for the majority of the year, there’s only been one, maybe two games where we’ve let ourselves down, but we’ve also been winning and that’s a sign of a good team as well.”
Melbourne City’s next test is an away encounter against Central Coast Mariners, who sit sixth on the ladder.