Perth Glory interim boss Alistair Edwards heaped praise on his players after their shock win over the Central Coast Mariners at nib Stadium.
Perth Glory interim boss Alistair Edwards heaped praise on his players after their shock win over the Central Coast Mariners at nib Stadium.
In Edwards’ first game in charge, goals from Travis Dodd and Shane Smeltz turned the contest on its head after Bernie Ibini had given the visitors a 13th-minute lead.
“What a great game of football, I really enjoyed it,” he said.
“You saw two top quality teams, it was an intriguing battle, but I couldn’t be prouder of the players. I said it to them as soon as I walked in to the club that we’ve got a great bunch of players in the change room.
“We worked on a few things during the week and it was really pleasing to not only get the three points but the performance.”
Despite being up against the league leaders who came into the contest on the back of a 5-0 thumping of the Wellington Phoenix, Edwards was happy with how his side controlled much of the game.
“I just thought that as the game progressed we just got stronger and stronger,” he said.
“And the fact that we really stuck by the game plan, keeping possession as things were opening, enabled some top individual performances from the team.”
One of those strong performances came from Liam Miller and Edwards revealed he is keen to use the Irishman in a more advanced role than the one he
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played under Ian Ferguson this season.
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played under Ian Ferguson this season.
“The way we are looking to play is to get people like Liam as far forward and supporting Smeltzy as much as possible because you don’t really want a player of Liam’s capabilities picking the ball up at left and right back,” said Edwards.
With Glory currently an outside shot for a finals berth, the new coach believes that team’s style of play will be important over the coming weeks.
“It’s not only about rolling the sleeves up and getting stuck in, it’s about the insight, when to do things, when not to do things,” he said.
“I’m now looking over the last six games, hopefully more, to see the ones who can fit into our way of playing because you can see that we tried to keep the ball as much as possible to open things up.”
Next up for Glory is a trip to Parramatta to take on the Western Sydney Wanderers next Saturday evening.
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