Melbourne Heart FC Head Coach John Aloisi has praised his side’s gutsy performance against Newcastle Jets as they held on to a 2-1 lead at AAMI Park yesterday.
Melbourne Heart FC Head Coach John Aloisi has praised his side’s gutsy performance against Newcastle Jets as they held on to a 2-1 lead at AAMI Park yesterday.
Aloisi told the media in the team’s post match press conference that the team were happy to win “ugly” to ensure it put a run of three losses behind it and commenced 2013 with three points.
“I said to the boys: ‘We have to win no matter how we play and that was most important’,” Aloisi said.
“Sometimes you need to win games ugly, I’ve seen so many other teams do it and it’s about time we started doing it and we did it today.
“We’ve played some really good football. It doesn’t always show, sometimes you have to grind out results to get confidence up. I believe in what I’m doing, it’s just a matter of making sure the boys keep believing.
“That performance, and I’m not talking about the way we played because the second half we didn’t play great, but the way we grinded out the result we haven’t been able to do all year.”
Aloisi said it was a difficult decision to relegate first-choice stopper Clint Bolton to the bench, but said debutant keeper Andrew Redmayne deserved a start.
“It was a tough decision because Clint’s been our best player for two years, won the best-and-fairest, and it’s not like he wasn’t playing well,” Aloisi said.
“But I felt Redders deserved a chance, he’d played really well in pre-season and at training he’s been great.
To watch the video of the press conference, press play on the video above.
