Gordon explains why the Mariners continue to struggle

Ziggy Gordon believes the Central Coast Mariners are stuck in a cycle of underachievement that makes it harder for the club to recruit and therefore harder to compete against the best in the A-League.

Ziggy Gordon and Scott Jamieson fist-bump after Melbourne City beat Central Coast Mariners 4-2 Source: Getty Images

The Mariners lost 4-2 to Melbourne City on Friday, their 10th defeat in a row and 17th from 22 games this season. The club are now seven points adrift at the bottom of the table and appear set for another wooden spoon. 

Gordon, who joined Central Coast from Scottish side Hamilton Academical last year, admits the NSW outfit are in a deep rut that is very tough to get out. 

“I think once you get into this position it’s very difficult to get out of it,” he told The World Game. 

“Every team has a lull, every team has a poor season and a poor string of results and get over it. But when you’ve had a poor couple of years players start to look at you and think I’m not going to go there unless I absolutely need to.

“And they don’t have a choice. And that’s a problem the Central Coast may have at the moment – let me get that straight – that’s no disrespect to the players that are here, absolutely not. We’ve got some good players here. 

“But that’s just the relevance of the league and that’s how this league works. In other leagues you’ve got such a big player pool, you can bring players from all over the world and you can find gems everywhere. 

“Obviously in Australia, you only have a limited amount of players, like you would if you could only pick from Scotland, or England or Italy, and I think when you’ve been in a lull and a bad situation for so long it counts against you.” 

Gordon feels the Mariners are up against it in terms of finances and in terms of image. But the Scotsman says the club can turn it around and get back to winning ways.

“I think there’s always a recipe for winning and there’s always a recipe for losing,” the defender said. “I strongly believe that. For the Central Coast they’re up against a wall financially against the bigger teams. 

“They’re obviously allowed to exploit the markets a lot better than the Central Coast are and the fact that every club can only sign five foreign players and the rest have to be Australian means that there are only so many Australian players at the end of the day and, obviously the bigger clubs are able to pay more. 

“And probably in terms of location, or support or exposure, may way want to go elsewhere and not go to the Central Coast. So it’s really difficult for them to bring in the top players from all over Australia. 

“But they’re doing their best; they’ve got a very close bond – people in the offices and those that work behind the scenes. I’ve seen it first-hand and they should be commended for their work. 

“Smaller clubs need to find new and innovative ways to compete with the bigger clubs. But this club has thrived before and I don’t see why, with a few new faces and a few different bits and pieces, that this club can’t flourish again.” 

Central Coast played against City at home behind closed doors because of the Coronavirus.

At this stage the A-League is set to continue staging matches without any crowds despite the global pandemic.

Gordon says there is a lot of anxiety and uncertainty around the footballing world, but with the need to keep playing to stop clubs potentially going under.

“The people at the top are of course really anxious to get the season over, as well as all the players and all members of staff and those out with the football club who’ve still got jobs at risk,” the 26-year-old said.

“Obviously the community and the support, everyone who loves football and the club they support, whether they make an income from that club or they support it. Everyone will be affected if this season doesn’t come to a close.

“I'm not an economics expert and I'm sure it's not as easy as that but in times of need it's the smaller clubs that will suffer and we should all come together.

"Who knows what’s going to happen next season with every league, every player really.

“There’s a lot of clubs that will go bust, I’ve got no doubt. Obviously the big clubs, the Premier League clubs, might be OK because they’ve got so much money in reserve. 

“If Premier league clubs really wanted to they could all donate £100 million, or £50 million, or whatever tax-free and put into some sort of purse for the smaller teams. That would help massively. 

“I think the FA have pledged £50 million to help the smaller teams. But in Scotland we’ve got nothing like that, it’s a totally different kind of pond.

“We really need to get these A-League games done if we want to salvage the league for ourselves and for the W-League here.”