That was huge win tonight.
The players came out breathing fire tonight. The loss against Green Gully and narrow win over Dandenong Thunder must have hit a nerve. They came out of the player race steely eyed and focused on smashing Dandenong City. The early goal within the second minute of the match helped to give the players a bit of confidence and extra boost to push on. There were a few moments there in the first half where Dandenong City could have equalised. But the defence stood strong and Charlston made some good saves to keep Dandenong City out.
Special call out to our new signings. Sinisa brought on the new signings to give them match time, which was smart. Yoo caused all sorts of headaches for the opposition and there were times where he was double teamed. He is linking up with Uchida well. Ramazani was really solid. Nothing got past him. If he was just a tad taller, he would have great aerial presence. Retre showed some good signs and playing for 10-15 minutes. You can see he’s played at a higher level. Hard to make a judgement on Juach and Nkomo, but happy they had match time.
Thankfully with Ramazani starting at Crntre Back, that allowed Giannakopoulos to move back to his midfield position. We looked much tighter in the middle of the park and were able to snuff out attacks further away from our penalty box.
It was an important win. Three points and we temporarily move back into the top 6. Our goal difference is now just -1.
Now comes 2 very difficult NPL matches against Preston (H), Oakleigh (A), and we host Adelaide United in the Australia Cup at the end of July. If we are going to be a serious threat, we need to win them.