Not happy ... Ange Postecoglou is sticking to his guns at Victory. Source: News Limited
Coach Ange Postecoglou has made it clear he'll use only tough love and tough decisions to rebuild the broken Melbourne Victory.
Those expecting counselling and cuddles from the new boss - after a 5-0 embarrassment by Brisbane Roar laid bare the size of the task facing all at the struggling A-League club - can think again.
Postecoglou admits he wasn't prepared for how badly the Victory have started the season.
| P | W | D | L | GD | Pts | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Adelaide | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 6 |
| 2 | Wellington | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 4 |
| 3 | Heart | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 4 |
| 4 | Central Coast | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 4 |
| 5 | Brisbane | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 3 |
| 6 | Perth | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 3 |
| 7 | Newcastle | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | -1 | 3 |
| 8 | Western Sydney | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | -1 | 1 |
| 9 | Sydney | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | -3 | 0 |
| 10 | Victory | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | -6 | 0 |
Two losses, schoolboy mistakes and a hopelessly-uncompetitive performance against the Roar for the club's worst defeat leave the Victory bottom of the ladder.
"I'm not a 'sharing the love' guy when things aren't going well," Postecoglou said on Thursday.
"You can't kid yourself. You watch the video of the game, and you understand the ramifications of it. You've just got to be honest .... we weren't up to standard.
"If I'd come in and sprinkled some hugs around the place, the players would probably be questioning what I'm doing.
"In sport, there's a scoreboard and a ladder which measures everything we do. Right now, that's suggesting we aren't up to standard."
Socceroos' World Cup qualifying hero Archie Thompson and Mark Milligan arrived back from international duty on Thursday morning, and trained lightly on arrival.
Postecoglou said they would come straight back into the starting line-up to play Adelaide United at Etihad Stadium on Friday night, as would New Zealand winger Marco Rojas.
They are likely to be straight swaps for injured trio Danny Allsopp (hamstring), Spase Dilevski and last weekend's surprise debutant Andrew Nabbout (groin).
Postecoglou maintained his team would eventually get right the play-from-the-back style he espouses, and was defiant there would be no changes to how he wanted the Victory to play.
"I'm here. I'm not going anywhere. We'll get it right," he said.
"After two games, we're not going to throw away everything we've worked pretty hard on. We're pretty determined as a football club to get it right, and we will do it.
"The key thing to anything like that (the loss to Brisbane) is your response to it."
Adelaide have started the season in great style - the only team with maximum points after two weeks.
They are expected to include attacker Dario Vidosic after he missed last weekend's 1-0 win over Western Sydney Wanderers with a minor hamstring injury.
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