Despite being seventh on the table, Melbourne City midfielder Corey Gameiro says his side have hit rock bottom. The 22-year-old believes they cannot sink any lower and the only way is up for his side, whom have set high standards before the start of the season.
Melbourne City have endured a bout of key outs in the 2015-16 season, including David Williams, Robert Koren, Ivan Franjic, Harry Novillo and Gameiro himself, who has missed out on significant game time due to injury. Aaron Mooy, arguably the most talented in the A-League, was an absentee in last week’s game against Newcastle to play for Australia.
Despite the youngster’s beliefs about the club’s underachieving status, Gameiro was quick to let the press know the team chemistry at Melbourne City was still at high.
“The vibe here is not as bad as everyone is saying, I read a lot of stuff, and the vibe is not as bad as making it out to be,” Gameiro said.
“Every day we come to training, the boys talking amongst each other we discuss situations, we say, ‘ok let’s try and move forward’, and from here it can only be positive, regardless of what the results are.
It can’t go downhill from here, it can only get better, we’re not going to get any worse, and that’s what we’re saying to each other, we have to be positive and the only way his forward.”
Last week’s 3-0 loss at home to Western Sydney was labelled by coach John van’t Schip as the worst loss City had played at home and Gameiro said the responsibility was more down to the players than the coaching staff.
“The boss can only do so much, he’s not out there playing for us, he’s not out there doing the runs for us,” he said.
“We just practice things during the week and when it didn’t go well we didn’t really have anything else to go to, or we didn’t know what was going wrong.”
Van’t Schip surprisingly did not deny the mentality of ‘no Aaron Mooy, no Melbourne City’, but Gameiro conceded there was too much reliance on Mooy in recent times. He did not take offence when the City boss failed to defend the rest of his playing group.
“We’re not idiots, we’re not stupid, we know Aaron’s quality, we seem him every day more than anyone else does, I’ve seen him do things in training and I just stand there and go ‘phwoah’, so it’s not a slap in the face to us,” he said.
“We’re all professional footballers and we all know he’s a quality player and how big he is to our team.
“When the boss says something like that we say ‘well yeah, he’s not wrong is he? He’s not lying’.
“Aaron’s a top player, probably one of the best players I’ve played with, and he’s always an outlet, so when things aren’t going well or when you’re under cosh, he’s an outlet.
“You can give the ball to him, and you know he’s going to keep the ball or do something and help us. He’s a big asset to this team and we’re lucky to have kept him here, and we’re happy that he’s here.”
Melbourne City take on Brisbane Roar on Friday night at Suncorp Stadium and Mooy is a chance to play after returning from Socceroos duty against Bangladesh, but may start on the bench.
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