An irate Gary van Egmond has slammed his side's lacklustre performance in their shock 3-0 loss to the Wellington Phoenix at Hunter Stadium.
An irate Newcastle Jets coach Gary van Egmond has slammed his side's lacklustre performance in their shock 3-0 loss to the Wellington Phoenix at Hunter Stadium on Sunday.
The Jets had been one of the form teams of the competition heading into the Round 7 fixture and went into the match as favourites against the lowly ranked Phoenix.
However, the New Zealand side turned in a gritty performance to frustrate the much vaunted Newcastle attack and score on the counter courtesy of a brace to former Jet Jeremy Brockie and a Paul Ifill penalty to secure a well-earned victory.
"We've had a lot more resolve this year than we had last year in games up until now, but we came up against a very desperate opponent," van Egmond said after the match.
"They are a real team of men - they will put their foot in where they have to, they will defend the box very strongly and then they have some players who can counter you.
"We didn't play with courage, we played with fear and if you are doing that you are never going to control a football match.
"I liked the way we have fought and got results this year, but you play against a team who like to fight and our positioning in the midfield, our defence playing out, all the different moments in transition was not the best."
It was the sixth win in a row for the Phoenix over the Jets but van Egmond rejected the notion that the Wellington side has a hoodoo over the Newcastle team.
"I don't buy it," he said. "The first half was there for the taking but we were nervous, I don't know why.
"We didn't look to capitalise especially on the left hand side where we overloaded them.
"You have the impetus of being at home you look at getting something from the game but they are a very good team on the counter.
"We spoke about it I don't know how many times and still we didn't do it. We were undisciplined in that area and from that point of view it was really poor."
The Jets coach made it clear he was unhappy with some of his players' performance and said he will make changes before next week's game against the Melbourne Heart.
"Personnel. Yes, 100 per cent. We will just see what we have got in regards to fit bodies and that will come into it but we need to change," van Egmond said.
"The philosophy will stay the same but it is a case of implementing it. From my point of view I am not happy with the way it is being implemented consistently over a game so we need to change.
"It is the decisions that you take. You have less touches on the ball, you run with it when you don't need to run with it, you need to pass it, you need to get into position early enough, people run with it because people aren't in position early enough it is just a snowball effect.
"At the end of the day you are going through this with players who have been here 15 months and if they are not going to get it then we just need to change."