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Newcastle Jets coach Branko Culina wants players and fans to keep the faith in his stylish approach, despite a three-game losing streak.
For the second week in a row the Jets dominated an A-League encounter, only to come away with nothing after Mile Sterjovski’s late penalty claimed an undeserved 1-0 win for Perth at EnergyAustralia Stadium on Friday night.
It was a familiar feeling for Jets fans, who saw their team go down 2-1 to Sydney FC the week before despite also outplaying the Sky Blues.
But Culina says he won’t be changing his philosophy to chase results, and wants his players to hang tough until their luck turns.
“We’ll continue to try and play football, nothing will change in that respect while I’m the coach,” he said.
“The club finished last year and lost (Ante) Covic, (Jade) North, (Mark) Milligan, Joel Griffiths, Adam Griffiths – and they finished last with those players.
“We know that we’ve got to rebuild. We’ve got, I believe, a good squad of players who need to continue to believe in themselves by continuing to play good football and the results will come.
“Unfortunately, when you play good football and the results are not there you may end up losing a little self-belief. We hope that that’s not going to be the case.”
One area Culina admitted he will be hoping to strengthen is his club’s forward options, with former Leeds and Sydney FC striker Michael Bridges a likely target.
“We’ve been looking at strikers for a little while but again it has to be better than what we currently have,” he said.
“Michael will get his opportunity to show us what he can do next week and let’s hope he is a solution because we do need different challenges up front, different options up front.”
And it seems Culina will need all of his motivational powers before the Jets travel to Adelaide next weekend with striker Labinot Haliti admitting Friday’s loss had been difficult to accept.
“Last week we played away against Sydney and showed we can play against the best teams, so the feeling was good,” Haliti said.
“A game like this … hard to take.”
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