Eugene Galekovic believes the Reds need to take a stand and tighten the screws in defence if they are to be a serious challenger for the Hyundai A-League title.
Eugene Galekovic believes the Reds need to take a stand and tighten the screws in defence if they are to be a serious challenger for the Hyundai A-League title.
For the seventh time in eight weeks, the Reds had conceded to their opposition at least once. Galekovic was left to pick the ball out of his net twice in the opening half against the Mariners on Saturday night, the eventual 2-1 loss leaving the keeper to assert that the Reds would need to stop leaking goals if they are to make it deep into the finals.
“I think we-re probably conceding too many goals. Championship teams are made on their defence and we-ve got to get that right because we are scoring enough goals, it-s just about keeping clean sheets and not conceding as many,” Galekovic said.
The loss to the Mariners was the first time United-s defence had been without Iain Fyfe this season, and it is something they must now get used to with the experienced defender having departed for the K-League.
While Fyfe-s absence and the arrival of Croatian Dario Bodrusic at this stage of the season is not ideal, Galekovic says improved performances defensively certainly are possible.
“It can happen, we-ve just got to sure it up. Players are coming in and players are leaving, with Fyfey leaving and Dario coming in, we-ve just got to get used to each other and hopefully improve,” Galekovic said.
Coming to terms with the defeat to the Mariners, Galekovic knows it was an opportunity missed, particularly as second spot was up for grabs.
“Saturday night was disappointing and playing at home in front of our crowd, we could have got second spot back, but in the end the boys weren-t up to it and we weren-t good enough on the day,” Galekovic said.
“I just don-t think the boys played to their standard. You look at the week before, everybody was above their standard and last week it wasn-t like that.”
“Credit to the Central Coast, they played good football, physically they were stronger than us, they put away their chances and we didn-t create enough last night.”
Almost ironically, the Reds are confronted by no better test of their defensive resolve than trying to hold out a Gold Coast United side that has been making a recent habit of scoring goals at home.
