Diles focused on results, not pressure, ahead of Victory showdown with Adelaide
On the eve of another Original Rivalry clash, Arthur Diles says he's focused on putting his players in position to win games and seeing them rewarded for their efforts, not speculation about his job.
Arthur Diles says that ongoing speculation surrounding his future isn’t affecting him, with his focus instead on ensuring his players are rewarded for their hard work on the training track and the coming fortnight he sees as a perfect opportunity to turn around Melbourne Victory’s stuttering season.
Victory’s winless run extended to four on the weekend, their 0-0 draw with Macarthur breaking a three-game losing run, but the associated point not enough to drag them off the foot of the table. The stalemate with the Bulls also ensured it was now four games without a goal, equalling an unwanted club record.
Inevitably, this has led to significant pressure on Diles’ status as Victory boss, with the club’s fans increasingly rancorous as results continue to slide. And with his next two games against two of Victory’s fiercest rivals in Adelaide and Melbourne City, the spotlight will only grow if the wheel doesn’t turn during the Yuletide period.
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The coach, however, who is approaching one full year as Victory boss across interim and permanent stints, says that this pressure isn’t weighing down his thoughts heading into the crunch period.
“I think it’s a perfect game to get back on that horse; we’re looking forward to that,” he said. “It’s a massive game, one that we’re back at home [for] and really looking forward to. There’s no better occasion than to turn things.
“The part [of the form skid] that I’m not liking is when you see my players disappointed at the end of a match – when they feel they should get something. I see them work really hard every single day. I see the quality in them. I see the determination. I see the togetherness in them. And the hardest part for me has been that they haven’t been rewarded so far.
“That’s something for me that I’m looking forward to seeing them get rewarded for their hard work.
“My focus is my job, first and foremost, followed by my family. Everything else for me is just water off a duck’s back. I turn up to work every day with my staff. We work extremely hard to make sure we do what we’ve got to do, to prepare our players for every match.
“Every match [when] you turn up, you want to be in a position where you can win the match. For most parts this year, we’ve been in positions in matches where we can win the match, and that’s pleasing. The end result’s not there at the moment, but it’s not far away either.”
After providing an obvious spark upon his entry as a substitute last week, Diles said that attacker Nishan Velupillay was firmly in contention to start this week. And his return would help address the obvious thing dragging down his side right now: their inability to score some goals.
The Victorians’ four goals this season are the equal fewest in the league through seven weeks of the campaign, last week’s opponents Macarthur the other goalshy outfit, and while they’re middle of the pack for both shots on target and expected goals (xG), they’re underperforming the latter statistic by a league worse 4.6.
Striking duo Nikos Vergos and Jing Reec have both failed to net during this stretch, which has led to talk that Victory – assuming they can find the funds and the salary cap space to get a deal done – will be front of the line to attempt to sign Mitch Duke as a free agent, or even Kusini Yengi amidst reports of his imminent Aberdeen exit.
And while their coach has remained largely consistent in his view that the side’s underlying play was sound and that the goals would eventually come even with their existing stock, he did acknowledge on Friday that – ahead of a fortnight that will almost certainly make or break his tenure – that they were looking at new things.
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“It’s definitely something that we’re aware of and working hard to fix,” said Diles. “It’s not always just a quick fix; you’ve got to keep working at it. You’ve got to keep coming up with combinations. There’s many ways to break down an opponent, and we have to be better in many, many ways.
“When it comes to breaking down opponents, although we’re creating some chances, we still need to create more and better chances to give us even more chances of scoring. We’re on top of that. We’re addressing that. And hopefully tomorrow night’s a good opportunity for us to show the work that we’ve been doing.”
Indeed, looking at the coming games against the Reds and City, it’s not too long a bow to draw to suggest that Victory’s season, not just Diles’ tenure, could be defined by a run of bad results.
Losses in back-to-back games against their rivals would leave Victory rooted to the foot of the A-League Men table more than a third of the way through its season and very likely close to double-digits off the top six – the gap presently four points to sixth-placed Adelaide and ten to top-of-the-table Sydney.
In such a scenario, it’s difficult to not only envision Diles retaining his job but also the club being able to install a replacement in time to engineer a turnaround – assuming one even came – to reach the playoffs.
“What more would you want, in terms of motivation?” said Diles. “We know the current situation that we’re facing. We’re not shying away from that, but we’re also looking up at the top, and we know we’re not too far away from the top spot.
“We’re keeping our feet on the ground. We’re keeping our heads focused. We’re working extremely hard to turn this around and to improve. We’ll do everything we can to make sure this turns around as quickly as possible.”