Melbourne City Head Coach Warren Joyce says he was pleased with elements of his side’s Westfield FFA Cup Round of 16 win but knows there is still work to do this pre-season.
City progressed to the final eight of the competition on Tuesday night, defeating Hakoah Sydney City East 3-2 in a score line that looked closer on paper.
With Joyce’s side full of youth and hit with injury, the Englishman was content with his side’s performance, lamenting on the missed opportunity to finish off the match.
“[I’m] pleased with a bright start and some reasonable football and obviously [to] get a goal up you think that settles us to go on and play some football and have a good shape about us,” Joyce said.
“You’d think the third one would kill it off and to be fair, I thought we should of had 4 or 5 during that period but [I’m] disappointed we gave a loose goal towards the end and it makes the final stages a bit of a scramble and brings it closer than it should have been.
“There are still a few things to iron out. We are building towards the season and moving towards working as an efficient organised unit and there were things that we have to do better than what we did tonight.”
Injuries to Michael Jakobsen and Bruno Fornaroli marred the result for City and the Head Coach was keen to consult with his medical staff first before delivering a clear prognosis.
Despite this, the door opened for youngster Denis Genreau to enter the match and find his first competitive goal for the Senior side in the second half and Joyce was pleased to see one of the pre-season’s in-form players step up to the plate.
“I thought he was bright. We were juggling around the players tonight and even before the game we were juggling around players who were not available so we had younger players looking to step up to the mark and I thought Denis was excellent when he came on.”
City will continue their cup run in the only A-League vs A-League clash of the Quarter Finals as they take on Sydney FC in a 2016 FFA Cup Final replay. Date, times and venue will be announced by FFA in the coming days.
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