Miron has to laugh, otherwise he'll cry

It's a telling one-liner from Gold Coast United coach Miron Bleiberg, who was so deflated after yesterday's match that he could only joke about it. It's a coping mechanism that is a result of frustration with his side's level of experience, brought on by Gold Coast's decision to play well under the salary cap coupled with recent injury woes.

“We came today with around nine out of the 15 players under 21 years old. Which means we lacked experience.”

Bleiberg compared his young side with the aging Wellington Phoenix side, many of whom are pushing 30 years old. The Phoenix are currently third but Bleiberg questioned where they will be in two years time, believing his team will come good.

“If you want to look at it we are a team of the future. We learn the trade, we are not such a bad side because we never get beaten by more than one goal, we're very competitive, but we're losing games and are bottom of the ladder”.

“If you measure it in money wise I think our forward line today there were a few guys on $5000, probably a tenth of the salary of Brett Emerton."

Gold Coast struggled on the park in more ways than one, and Ante Rozic came down with an apparent stomach bug ten minutes before fulltime.

“You say your season is down the drain or is in the toilet, that's what happened today Ante Rozic was unbeaten in the air, a tower of strength but ten minutes before the end he had to have a toilet break so I put Dylan McGowan in against Cazarine. I still believe if Ante Rozic was there when the cross came in we wouldn't have conceded.

“So Ante was in the toilet and the goal was scored. So there you go, that's a toilet season”.

“At the moment I'm laughing because I don't want to cry – I'm on the border. And that's hard you know. We came here twice, twice we got beaten. Sydney have got seven points out of us”.

“But in the end there were four guys out there on $5000 wages. Can you imagine a player from Sydney FC get $5000 a week he wouldn't even spit on it. So that's it”.