Melbourne Victory interim boss Grant Brebner has ruled out the possibility of taking over as the club’s permanent head coach after this season.
Brebner was promoted to the position last week – after the club’s preceding interim manager, Carlos Salvachua, returned home to Europe – with the Victory publicly declaring its intentions to fill the vacancy with someone new.
Despite describing the new challenge as an ‘’honour and privilege’’ Brebner says he has plenty to learn before fulfilling the role of a professional head coach.
”As the club stated quite openly, they are looking to bring someone else and I’m fully supportive of that,’’ Brebner said.
”This will be a good learning curve for me but there’s still a lot of education I need to get through before I step into a position like this. I welcome another coach coming in and learning what he has to offer and take bits of information off him.
”It is an honour and a huge privilege. It’s something I hoped would come, didn’t think it’d come this quickly, but I’ll be giving it my best shot.’’
Brebner’s focus will instead be towards helping the club re-discover the culture and stability which filled its trophy cabinet.
The two-time A-League Champion believes the club’s poor on-field performances were attributed to straying from the successful foundations set in previous seasons.
”We had Ernie Merrick in the early days, Ange Postecoglou and Kevin Muscat, the foundations for our performances – win, lose or draw – were attacking and entertaining football,’’ he said.
”In my personal view, I don’t think that was our mantra this year. I don’t think we set out as much to get that entertainment factor. In the short period of time we have that’s going to be our goal to bring back a little bit of entertainment back to the crowd and win games along the way.
”This year we may have gone away from those things which were inherent at the club and that’s what I want to try and bring back – a bit of stability.’’
Melbourne Victory will resume its season on July 16 against Western United without captain Ola Toivonen, who has returned home to Sweden, with ‘club-captain’ Leigh Broxham expected to fill the vacant role.
The club is also optimistic Robbie Kruse will be fit for the season’s restart, with the Socceroo training with the main squad on Tuesday.
”He’s been someone who’s been limited due to injury this year. We’re just glad to have him on the park today. He’ll be a player we’ll manage during this period but if Robbie’s fit and rearing to go then there’s no reason he won’t be in the starting 11,’’ Brebner said.
