A-League: Victory chairman promises fallen giants will hit back hard
Melbourne Victory chairman Anthony Di Pietro says the club’s awful season wasn’t good enough and has promised change.
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Melbourne Victory chairman Anthony Di Pietro says blame for the club’s dismal season starts with him and has promised to lift the four-time A-League champions out of the doldrums.
Under interim coach Grant Brebner, the Victory finished their disastrous 2019-2020 A-League campaign with a 2-1 loss to fellow also-rans Western Sydney Wanderers at Bankwest Stadium on Wednesday night.
The Victory won just six of their 26 games to finish second last on the ladder and only ahead of the poor Central Coast Mariners.
“It hurts everybody that’s a Victory person – it’s not anywhere near our expectations,” Di Pietro told Victory TV.
“It’s not good enough. It starts from where I sit and we’ve got to get it right ... and we will.
“We’ve done it before and we’ll do it again.”
Di Pietro said the club was “close” to announcing a new coach.
The top contenders are former Brisbane Roar boss John Aloisi, Arthur Papas, currently Ange Postecoglou’s right-hand man at Japanese club Yokohama F. Marinos, and Brebner.
“I’d like to be in a position to say that we have an announcement. We’re close,” Di Pietro said.
“It has to be soon. We’ve got recruitment, we’ve got a lot of discussions going on with potential players.
“It’s been an enormous task. We’ve got to get it right, and we’ve got to get the mix right of the coaching staff, and then of course the support around recruitment.
“A coach is coming in with the opportunity to build on the really good base we have here.
“I can talk about Grant Brebner because he is currently the head coach of our club. He’s there on an interim basis.
“He’s a bit like (former Victory coach) Kevin Muscat. We knew he had the character and the characteristics to be head coach ... it’s the same with Grant.”
While the Victory’s A-League commitments are done for the season, they are scheduled to next month play in the AFC Champions League, Asia’s premier club competition that has been delayed for several months due to COVID-19.
“We’ve got to be ready (for the AFC Champions League),” Di Pietro said.
“We think we’ve got some good arrangements in place with the (Victorian) government. We’ll be in a position to get ourselves ready.”
Originally published as A-League: Victory chairman promises fallen giants will hit back hard