Brisbane Roar striker Besart Berisha has backed his teammates to take the momentum of Saturday’s morale-boosting 3-1 win over Melbourne Victory into this week’s six-day stint on the road.
Brisbane Roar striker Besart Berisha has backed his teammates to take the momentum of Saturday-s morale-boosting 3-1 win over Melbourne Victory into this week-s six-day stint on the road.
The victory was Brisbane-s first since November 26 and with a cross-country journey to play Perth Glory tomorrow night at nib Stadium as part of the Hyundai A-League-s Big Wednesday, followed by a trip to South Australia to face Adelaide United on Saturday, Berisha said the three points came at a vital time.
“It-s a big challenge but we are happy with the win against Victory and we have a lot of confidence,” he said.
“I feel good because I missed it a lot and I saw that the team was missing this success a lot and I think a team who gets beaten five games in a row, it-s not easy to come back.
“We showed that we are a really strong team and we can do it.
“Especially to win against Melbourne Victory after a lot of losses, it was very, very good and showed good character.”
The former Arminia Bielefeld striker is the Hyundai A-League-s current Golden Boot leader with nine goals to his name, despite not finding the back of the net in five outings – a statistic that coincided with the Roar-s run of poor results.
While Berisha is quick to admit he-s been out of goal-scoring touch, he-s not overly concerned.
He set up both of Brisbane-s second-half goals against the Victory, first squeezing through a quick pass for Rocky Visconte to give the Roar the lead before playing a one-two with Ivan Franjic to set up the lively right-back for his first of the campaign.
“For me, the game on Saturday, it was especially important I make two assists which gave me a lot of confidence and relieves the pressure to score goals,” he said.
“I am really thankful for the nine goals and the next goal is coming but for me, it-s not so important now.
“I was really happy with the assists and sometimes that-s the way it is, you make assists and no goals but that-s football and I-m sure I will come back with good goals soon.”
The 26-year-old-s barren run in goal as also coincided with the heel injury to Brisbane-s classy playmaker Thomas Broich but Berisha dismissed claims that the German-s absence has been the reason for the team-s lack of goals.
“In the games I was not scoring, it was not because the other boys don-t give good passes, it was because on a whole, we didn-t really play so well,” Berisha said.
“Not just the others, me too – I didn-t do the things I should have and I think that maybe we know we miss Thomas, because he-s a good player and everybody knows this.
“We also miss Henrique but the other players are doing well, it-s taken a little bit of time to understand my runs and my ways but we-re back on track now.”
Brisbane Roar play Perth Glory in the fifth match of tomorrow-s Hyundai A-League Big Wednesday. Kick-off is at 9pm AEST. For match updates, follow @brisbaneroar on Twitter.
