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Bleiberg turns up heat on Victory

Roar Guru
3rd February, 2011
3

Gold Coast coach Miron Bleiberg has further turned up the heat on Melbourne Victory’s physical tactics by suggesting Ernie Merrick should follow his own lead with firebrand Steve Pantelidis and rehabilitate serial offenders.

Bleiberg has refused to back down after sparking a war of words between the A-League clubs, which exploded on the weekend after he spoke a truth which a lot of people have been afraid to say.

The colourful coach described Victory’s intimidating play as borderline dirty following their 2-0 win over the Coast on Sunday, which included an ugly challenge by Adrian Leijer on Bas van den Brink.

The comments, which drew a fierce response from Merrick and Victory players, came on top of Kevin Muscat’s horrible tackle on the Heart’s Adrian Zahra which saw the Melbourne skipper suspended for eight weeks.

Bleiberg identified Pantelidis, who he sent to a sports psychologist during the pre-season to clean up his act, as an example that combustible players can be affectively disciplined with good results.

The 27-year-old former Victory defender was the man of the match in Gold Coast’s 0-0 draw with Adelaide United on Wednesday night, and seems to have shaken off the bad boy tag which came with 10 yellow cards and four suspensions last season.

Bleiberg forced Pantelidis to sit through a show reel of his yellow cards in the off-season before seeing the psychologist he credits for helping find a cure for his hot-headedness.

“He won the man of the match (last night), showing you can take a serial offender and reprimand him and talk to him and explain to him and send him to a psychologist,” Bleiberg said. “So you turn (the situation) and take the best out of it.

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“I still see my neighbours from the south and have they reprimanded any of their offenders? I’ll wait and see.

“That’s maybe the difference.”

While Pantelidis finished Wednesday night’s goalless stalemate at Skilled Park with plenty of admirers, another Coast hardman, John Curtis, was in bad shape after being stretchered off suffering concussion and a shoulder injury.

Curtis, who underwent scans on Thursday and will not travel to Perth this weekend, collided heavily with Paul Reid in the 76th minute, resulting in a dubious red card for the Adelaide midfielder.

Reds coach Rini Coolen took issue with referee Chris Beath’s decision and felt it was an over-reaction prompted by the extra pre-match attention to hard tackles.

The draw left Adelaide (47) three points behind second-placed Central Coast and kept Gold Coast (43) fourth but level on points with the fast-finishing Victory.

Despite ruing several missed chances, Bleiberg was well pleased with the Coast’s display after being intimidated by the Victory in Melbourne.

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“The result was disappointing but overall if we play like this until the end we will have a lot to say in the finals,” he said.

“To make a team like Adelaide look second rate is an achievement to our boys.”

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