Ian Crook ... 'It hurts me to read people saying they showed no heart and no desire.' Source: News Limited
Sydney FC coach Ian Crook has hit back at Mark Bosnich over claims his side lacked heart in their 7-2 capitulation against Central Coast last weekend, describing the Fox Sports football expert's comments as a "cop out".
While accepting that his team's performance was unacceptable, Crook refused to believe his players gave up and were not proud to wear the jersey.
| P | W | D | L | GD | Pts | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Adelaide | 5 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 5 | 12 |
| 2 | Central Coast | 5 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 10 |
| 3 | Perth | 5 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 9 |
| 4 | Newcastle | 5 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 9 |
| 5 | Western Sydney | 5 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 7 |
| 6 | Victory | 5 | 2 | 0 | 3 | -5 | 6 |
| 7 | Sydney | 5 | 2 | 0 | 3 | -6 | 6 |
| 8 | Wellington | 5 | 1 | 2 | 2 | -1 | 5 |
| 9 | Brisbane | 5 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 4 |
| 10 | Heart | 5 | 1 | 1 | 3 | -3 | 4 |
"It hurts me to read people saying they showed no heart and no desire," Crook said.
"That for me is a cop out.
"That is an easy thing to say, that they don't wear the shirt with pride. That for me is just far from the truth.
"There were 23 minutes left when it was seven. If we had shown no heart it could have been a lot worse."
In summing up the round-five A-League fixtures on Sunday Shootouty, Bosnich said: "Ian Crook said last night that his players didn't lack heart. Well, I'm not sure based on that game that he should have said that.
"It's not good enough. Sydney's one of the truly big clubs in this country, and I mean that judging by support and success, and they cannot continue to serve that up to supporters and expect them to keep coming back to watch and pay their hard-earned money."
Immediately after Saturday night's game, Bosnich was scathing of Sydney's performance and said they should walk out of their dressing rooms to apologise to their travelling fans.
"That was an utter disgrace," Bosnich said.
"For those people to travel up that motorway and witness that score against one of their main rivals ... I'm sorry, that just ain't good enough.
"People pay good money to go and watch a football game, not to get slaughtered."
Crook forced his senior players to watch a replay of their woeful performance against the Mariners on Monday morning, but said he would not be punishing anyone before the clash against Melbourne Victory at Allianz Stadium on Saturday.
"You punish people if people don't try, and that was something that never occurred," Crook said.
"You see them in the dressing room afterward and they hurt big time.
"Everybody is hurt. I wish the game was today, so you can try to rectify what you didn't do on the weekend.
"They were fine (during the video review). They were positive in there, obviously disappointed we lost the way we did. But we need to use it as motivation."
Crook suffered a 7-1 loss in his first game as coach of Norwich City against Colchester in 2009 - the club's worst home defeat in their 107-year history.
"We got beat 7-1 at Norwich in the first game of the season three years ago and we ended up winning the league with four games to go," Crook said.
"So it's something we used as motivation to turn it around, and I believe we want to do the same here.
"Seven is never something you want to see next to your name. I'll remember this 10 years down the line. You shouldn't ever get over something like this, but you can use it as motivation.
"I think it should make us stronger. We need to understand that losing (by conceding) seven is not acceptable, but it's how you come back from it.
"It's always a massive game against Melbourne Victory. If we can come out of that with three points, things look a whole lot rosier."
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