By LIAM TWOMEY
VICTORIAN Premier League fans could be excused for thinking Andrew Marth has the golden touch.
Since taking over the head-coaching job at the Melbourne Knights earlier this month, Marth has been at the forefront of a remarkable turnaround, which has seen the club re-launch its season.
The Knights have won two of their past their VPL matches including a huge upset victory against competition powerhouse Green Gully. The club also progressed through to the next round of the Victorian Premier League Knockout Competition with a 1-0 win over Ballarat.
Marth said he had enjoyed his time since taking over and was rapt the club was able to string some victories together.
“It has been great. Obviously we have changed the structure of the team and the guys have responded …which is good,” he said.
Marth has introduced an increased focused on defence in an effort to limit opposition scoring.
“In any team whether it is local football or international football your strongest point is always your defence because if you don’t concede any goals then you aren’t going to lose any games,” he said.
“You need to look at your defensive structure first because that’s the strongest part of your game. We have changed that around and we have changed a few players around in a few positions and I think they have responded to that and so far it has been pretty good for us.
“Before they were playing a different system which I thought was a more free-flowing game and they were getting caught on the counter-attack a bit. We just changed that around and it is working.”
The Knights will be confident of adding to their recent run of form with matches against Hume City and the Moreland Zebras in the coming weeks.
Marth and his coaching panel are ensuring the playing group doesn’t get ahead of themselves though and said the club would be initially focused on avoiding the relegation zone.
“First and foremost our main goal is to avoid relegation and we aren’t out of the woods yet. We are just taking it the old cliché week by week but at the moment things are looking pretty good.”
Not everything went the Knights’ way on the weekend though as the club went down 2-1 to the Southern Stars.
