Melbourne Heart FC Head Coach John Aloisi was pleased with his side’s performance in last night’s 0-0 draw against Melbourne Victory in front a record derby crowd of 45,202 at Etihad Stadium
Melbourne Heart FC Head Coach John Aloisi was pleased with his side-s performance in last night-s 0-0 draw against Melbourne Victory in front a record derby crowd of 45,202 at Etihad Stadium.
“I would say that it was tactically a good game,” he said.
“A lot of people will see 0-0 and not a lot of chances, but I thought we had a game plan and the boys did very well defensively.”
Melbourne Heart looked much better defensively, and still created a number of chances, with Golgol Mebrahtu, Harry Kewell and a returning Mate Duganzdic coming close to scoring on the night.
Despite the stalemate, Aloisi believes a point a piece is a good start to the season for the Red and White, although he felt his side should have taken advantage of their dominant period during the start of the second half.
“At the beginning of the second half we played on the ball a lot more, [Andrea] Migliorini played well, Harry [Kewell] did well,” Aloisi said.
“The boys did what we wanted, what we could have done better was during the 15 to 20 minutes we had the ball was be more patient.”
Aloisi highlighted the fact that both forwards Michael Mifsud and Dylan Macalister were unavailable, meaning his side had to change up some of their tactics to suit the presence of Mebrahtu.
Aloisi said he would monitor Kewell’s condition after he suffered two knocks to the head last night and was removed as a precaution in the 68th minute.
“Harry got a knock to the head and got some whiplash and had some neural pain down the back of his leg,” he said. “We took him off as a precaution.”
Aloisi singled out praise for the new captain-s performance, saying that he will only improve as the season progresses.
“Harry will only get better,” Aloisi said. “The more he plays with those guys the better he-ll get.”
