Stephen Peters says if his Perth Glory side want to climb the A-League Women’s ladder, they cannot afford to focus too much on their own position near the foot of the table.
Perth have reached six games without a win and despite some decent performances, they have conspired to draw games they should have won, or lose games in which they deserved a point.
However, they were beaten 4-1 by Western United on Tuesday in a game they were soundly second-best for long stretches, leaving them nine points off the finals race and just three above the foot of the ladder.
Peters said while the positivisy in the squad had not dropped despite their recent winless run, and there were some performances they could be proud of, they needed to be clinical in their execution if they wanted to arrest their slump.
“We’ve left between five and eight points out there in our results. There’s games we’ve drawn we could have won, and games we’ve lost by one we could have drawn. Saturday (against Melbourne Victory) was another example of that,” Peters said.
“We’re a couple of places down from where I felt we could have been. That’s pretty difficult to digest for most of us.
“But we’ve got to make sure we’re pushing, particularly this week and into the second half of the season, and not focus too much on the table, and concentrate week by try and claw our way back up the table.”
Brisbane Roar head to Sam Kerr Football Centre on Sunday to face the Glory, and they comfortably beat Perth 3-0 earlier this season.
“Brisbane Roar are a fantastic team and I think they’ll be in the mix for both bits of silverware this year. They’ve got a tremendous outfit,” Peters said.
“They’ve got Sharn Freier, who has just signed for Wolfsburg, which is a massive step in her career, Tameka Yallop is extremely experienced, so we have to be ready for what it’s going to take to bring a challenge to the Roar.
“They’re an excellent side and we definitely haven’t forgotten the match we played them at Perry Park, which was a very difficult night for us.”
Tijan McKenna will return from her one-game suspension, and Isobel Dalton is in line for more minutes in a double-edged boost to Perth’s midfield — but Georgia Cassidy is no certainty after sustaining a concussion against the Victory last Saturday.
Peters also said injured attackers Kelli Brown and Sarah O’Donoghue were improving, with the latter close to a return from an ankle injury.
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