The Cairns Post

Aloisi: Victory can still be ours in tie

- NICK D’URBANO

IT’S only a “slender” advantage for Melbourne Victory after leg one of its semi-final showdown with Western United and that’s enough for United coach John Aloisi to declare ”this is just the first half”.

Victory coach Tony Popovic conceded his team was only just in front of their cross-town rivals after Jake Brimmer’s late strike delivered his team a 1-0 win on Tuesday night.

But with no “away goals” rule, the one goal is just that, one goal, and the door is not shut on United.

“We have a slender advantage,” Popovic said after the win. “There‘s no away goals in these two games … we can’t sit here and say we’re not pleased that we won the match.

“We are, but we understand that it’s another game to come and we expect another tough battle as we had today. Hopefully this advantage can help us on Saturday.”

Western United boss John Aloisi said his team was “excited” after the loss, knowing the task ahead of them to progress to the grand final isn’t the herculean one it could be when they meet for the second leg on Saturday, back at AAMI Park.

“This is the first half, we’re 1-0 down,” Aloisi said.

“We’re back here. We don’t have to go away, we don’t have to play away from home.

“Obviously, we would have liked to have grabbed a goal and grabbed something out of the game but (we’re) excited about Saturday night now and I can see our boys excited too.

“They felt it after the game, they were like: ‘Wow, we can give them some game on Saturday.’

“We don‘t have to panic because it’s one goal. We don’t have to try and think that we have to do something completely different ... nothing drastic has to change.”

Victory boss Popovic was full of praise for Brimmer (pictured), who has been one of Victory’s more consistent performers all season after moving from Perth Glory at the start of last campaign.

The midfielder is having a career-best season, tallying seven assists this campaign to go with his Mark Viduka medal in the FFA Cup final.

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