Losing the Premier’s Plate has been a bitter pill to swallow for Sydney FC’s coach Graham Arnold.
Finishing second on the ladder just three points shy of premiers Melbourne Victory, Arnold says injuries cost the team badly and played a major role in the club not nabbing the silverware.
“I won’t give Melbourne Victory one day of credit for winning this competition,” Arnold said.
“If we didn’t have four season-ending injuries in the month of November-December, we would have won the league by 10 points.”
Nicky Carle, Sasa Ognenovski, Ali Abbas and young striker Corey Gameiro were all ruled out before the season break for the Asian Cup.
Arnold says it hurt the team’s morale, but bringing in “three very good players in Jacques Faty, Mickael Tavares and Robert Stambolziev” helped bring the Sky Blues into form.
While they can’t turn back the clock, they are at least readying themselves for a crack at the Championship silverware, as they prepare for the semi-finals in two weeks.
They take on the highest ranked winner to come out of this week on Saturday 9 May.