Warren Joyce was pleased with his side’s efforts as Melbourne City FC progressed to the Westfield FFA Cup Round of 16 with a 2-0 win over Peninsula Power at Dolphin Stadium. Here’s what the manager had to say at his post-match press conference.
OVERALL THOUGHTS ON THE WIN
“I thought it was a tough game, I thought [Peninsula Power] were good, well organised and had two or three people who [posed] a threat.
“I thought in the first half we were a bit frantic and playing balls forward and there were too many fight balls and not on the right side and bouncing away. They were some of the things we talked about at half time.
“I wouldn’t single out any players; we’ve obviously given them jobs to do with or without the ball and they’ve done a reasonable job tonight. I think at times around the box we could have had a bit more of a killer instinct and more detail on the final pass.”
ON THE THREAT POSED BY PENINSULA POWER
“I thought their two forwards were good players but I thought all of them gave a good account of themselves. If you were the opposition manager you would have been pleased with the way they performed – I thought they were a well organised, well-drilled team and worked hard for one another.
ON STEFAN MAUK’S CONDITION
“He came off from the knock… a bit of a precaution as well because he’s not done the pre-season because he was away with the Australian under-23s so you’re only looking to play him 60 minutes anyway. Hopefully, [the knock] is not too bad. We’ll probably find our a bit more about across the next week.”
ON PLAYING A COMPETITIVE FIXTURE SO EARLY IN PRE-SEASON
“It’s a difficult one for me to get my head around. Pre-season is pre-season and whilst I don’t regard any match as friendlies, you still want to work the players hard in the pre-season to build a base for later on in the year.
“You’ve had to come off it a little bit because it is a game where you could be out of the cup. It’s a strange one to get my head around when you want to keep working. The second match [against Bentleigh] we sent the players into it tired on purpose because we wanted to test them in other ways and build up high levels of fitness.”
ON THE PROGRESS MADE IN PRE-SEASON
“I think we’ve put a lot of work in over a few weeks. Regardless of the opposition, I think [our players] had a right go. We’ve won three games, kept three clean sheets – that’s a plus that we haven’t conceded a goal so far.
“I’m not really concerned with thinking about what the opposition or what other A-League clubs are doing because we haven’t come up against an A-League side yet. We just have to keep working every day and every week on our stuff to try and be the best that we can be.”
It’s a win to kick-start our FFA Cup defence, and we want you to be along with us for the journey! Sign up as a Melbourne City member and guarantee your seat to 14 home A-League matches at AAMI Park, because Nothing Beats Being There.
