COACH John Aloisi is adamant the tide will turn for Western United despite the A-League Men club again going goalless in their third straight loss.<\/p>\n
United suffered a 1-0 defeat to Newcastle, who claimed their first win under new coach Rob Stanton via Apostolos Stamatelopoulos’ goal in the 44th minute at Ballarat\u2019s Mars Stadium on Saturday.<\/p>\n
The defeat piles pressure on Aloisi’s United, who beat Melbourne City in round one but have since failed to score in three consecutive losses ahead of the international break.<\/p>\n
“When you keep performing like that, goals will come,” Aloisi said.<\/p>\n
“I know over the years of playing and coaching, when you’re creating chances and you’re controlling a game, you don’t want to change too much.<\/p>\n
“You just want to keep making sure that you get better at it and then keep improving and then the chances will still come and we’ll get goals.<\/p>\n
“So that’s the way that I look at it and then it’s happened in the past that it has turned pretty quick.<\/p>\n
“Every game is a must-win. We want to win every game. We tried to win today. We played the game to win. We didn’t play to not win.<\/p>\n
John Aloisi’s Western United have lost three ALM games in a row after an opening-round win.<\/p>\n
“But we’re not going to become anxious about winning. We have to make sure that we keep on doing the right things and play our football.”<\/p>\n
Aloisi played down a lengthy post-match chat with United chief executive Chris Pehlivanis as a general conversation about the game.<\/p>\n
Earlier on the pitch, United’s Daniel Penha hit the crossbar in the 10th minute and then thumped home in the 40th.<\/p>\n
But the ball clearly went out of play for a goal kick before Ben Garuccio’s assist and was chalked off after a VAR review.<\/p>\n
Four minutes later, Newcastle scored.<\/p>\n
Trent Buhagiar’s header clipped the bottom of the bar and the ball fell to Stamatelopoulos, 24, who powered home his fourth goal of the season.<\/p>\n
“[Stamatelopoulos] has this winning mentality that he’s leading the others in the team as well,” Stanton said.<\/p>\n
“He wants to learn, he wants to grow, and it’s rubbing off on a lot of players and the reward he got today is for pure hard work and dedication.<\/p>\n
“So I’m over the moon for him.”<\/p>\n
Newcastle’s Clayton Taylor looked for a penalty when he tangled legs with Josh Risdon in the 72nd minute but referee Casey Reibelt instead awarded a free kick to the United captain.<\/p>\n
After a VAR review and checking the vision, Reibelt didn’t overturn her decision.<\/p>\n
“You have to accept the decision, which I did, obviously, but I felt it was a penalty,” Stanton said.<\/p>\n
Striker Nikita Rukavytsya thought he’d equalised for the hosts via a lovely looping header in the 87th minute but was ruled offside.<\/p>\n