Ange: Late winner builds belief

MELBOURNE Victory coach Ange Postecoglou says his side's last-gasp 2-1 triumph over city rivals Heart will build belief among his side that they can score until the last kick of a match.

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Postecoglou, who famously had a lot of late success with previous club Brisbane Roar, saw Archie Thompson net a stoppage-time winner to decide the derby after Fred had equalised Marco Rojas' opener.

The Victory boss said Thompson's late derby winner would do wonders for his players belief in his system and methods.

“It builds belief. They keep telling me I'm a lucky coach and long may it continue. It happened at Brisbane and it's happening here,” Postecoglou told Fox Sports.

“I've always said to the players we've got to go to the end, whatever the scoreline we try score goals right up to the final minute.

“When you have that philosophy in games like this, where you want to get the winner, it's easy for the players because they've already got that mindset.”

Postecoglou was vocal during the second half and revealed he felt the second half was a “funny” affair where his side needed to be reminded to stick to their structures.

“It was a funny second half because it seemed like Melbourne Heart were playing around the back and there wasn't a lot of urgency. We couldn't get a good tempo in the game and I just wanted us to stay switched on,” he said.

“We got our goal and they hit back but I felt we still had something in us. With Archie and Marco (Rojas) in the team and players like (Gui) Finkler and (Marcos) Flores, you always back yourself to score, but there wasn't a lot of tempo in it so I just wanted to make sure we kept our structures.”

Meanwhile, defeated Heart boss John Aloisi said he was proud of his players effort and insisted if they continued to play like that they'd win plenty of football games.

“I said to the boys how proud I was of how they performed tonight,” Aloisi said describing his post-game team talk.

“We have to show the same character and spirit and play good football like tonight for the rest of the season because that's what you need to get points. Most of the time when you play like that, you will get points.

“There were times that Victory had good possession in our half but they weren't causing us too much trouble. But they ended up scoring two goals and we only scored one.”

Aloisi felt after his side's equaliser through Fred on 82 minutes, they were the more likely side to win the clash.

“I thought there was only one team looking likely to win at the end,” he said.

“We lost the ball in a bad area and they caught us on the counter. Everyone is pretty distraught in the changerooms but we've got to pick ourselves up because we've got an important game in Wellington in a few days time.”