Central Coast Mariners boss Phil Moss insists morale is still high amongst his squad but concedes they are lacking some belief in front of goal to capitalize on their good play.
t was another fruitless 90 minutes for the Mariners on Friday night, beaten 3-0 by a clinical and rampant Melbourne Victory at North Sydney Oval.
While both sides created good goal-scoring chances it was the visitors who made there’s count.
“I don’t think we’ve lost confidence but we haven’t scored enough goals this season and it’s having that belief,” Moss said.
“If anyone wants to come to training during the week and see some of the goals we score but it’s about transferring that to match day.
“We’ve got players in the dressing room are capable of scoring goals so we’ve got no problem there.
“We had plenty of opportunities to shoot and we didn’t pull the trigger. If you don’t shoot you don’t score.
“When you don’t score goals it builds pressure at the other end. Besart Berisha is the best marksman in the league for a reason. He gets a chance and he takes it.”
Victory scored all their goals in a frantic 11-minute period in the second half through Berisha, Daniel Georgievski and Connor Pain.
The defeat means its eight games without a win for the Mariners and they have managed just five goals for the season so far.
Despite the lean run, Moss is adamant spirits are high and things will turn soon.
“There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the morale, that’s the beauty of this group,” Moss said.
“Win lose or draw they are a great bunch of guys to work with and I love turning up every day. We go back to the training pitch, work hard and keep the belief our luck will turn.
“We’ve got a lot of honest people and when you do that eventually your luck will turn. I’ve got no doubt our season will turn, it’s just a matter of when.”
Asked how he felt about the club taking their home game away from Gosford, Moss said: “Our home ground is Central Coast Stadium and we’re proud to be the Central Coast Mariners.
“We represent the community up there as well. It’s difficult to come and play somewhere else but our owner wants to enlarge the footprint of the club and tap into the 20 percent membership down here. He’s got every right to do that, he puts a lot of money into the club.
“Our job is regardless of whether we’re playing at North Sydney Oval, Brookvale (Oval), Central Coast or nib (Stadium, it doesn’t matter where we are we have to go out and play good football and win games.”
