Western Sydney boss Alen Stajcic is refusing to hit the panic button over his side’s slow start, adamant the Wanderers can take inspiration from the Central Coast Mariners and shoot up the A-League Men table.
Stajcic benched the club’s star off-season recruit Juan Mata at halftime during Saturday’s 4-3 loss to Adelaide United.
The defeat to the Reds means the Wanderers are still searching for their first win at their CommBank Stadium home since January.
But with just one point from a possible nine to start the campaign, Stajcic is not prepared to lose faith.
As proof that his side could resuscitate their campaign, the Wanderers boss pointed to the Mariners’ slow start last season when they lost their first four ALM games but claimed the premiership, championship and AFC Cup.
“You can only look forward and move forward, and we only have to look at what happened last year,” Stajcic said.
“Everyone was on the back of the Mariners. After four losses in a row, they ended up winning the title and all of a sudden, they're the best team in history.
“The season's not shaped by one game or one performance.
“It’s really about the principles that are in place and the way that the players are going to expose themselves when they're under pressure.”
Stajcic said his decision to hook Mata was tactical and was not a result of the Spaniard’s fitness levels.
The Wanderers were undone by what Stajcic described as “elementary errors” with a lack of pressing intent and two errors from Tristan Vidackovic giving Adelaide the upper hand.
But Stajcic is keeping calm, insisting that things will begin to turn in the Wanderers’ favour.
“You really shouldn't be scoring three goals in a game and losing,” Stajcic said.
“We've showed enough attacking intent in every game, I think we've had 18 or 19 shots in every single game we've played so far.
“But we can't play for 20, 30 or 40 minutes, we have to do better than that, and I think this team's got it within them to do that.
“Pre-season counts for nothing, but we showed it throughout pre-season that we could dominate a lot of teams that we were coming up against.
"We need to take that belief in other games and carry that with us.”
