We believe in what we are doing, says Hallgrimsson

Jamaica’s 2-1 defeat by Jordan in the international friendly in Austria yesterday has extended their winless run under coach Heimir Hallgrimsson to seven matches.

Although the head coach admitted that winning is a habit, he does not think the string of (winless) results will impact their performance and ambitions at the Concacaf Gold Cup, which starts on Saturday.

“It is often said that winning is a habit but losing can be that as well. So it (losing) is something that we do not want to carry on doing. But I think the mindset for the Gold Cup will be a lot different,” he said.

“I wish we would have registered the win. But does it affect how we work? No. Does it affect if we think we have a good chance to do good in the tournament? No.

“I hope we go forward and get good results in the Gold Cup. We are not happy with losing. This game (yesterday) we should have won it but we lost and that is not a good thing.”

Pleased with team’s effort

Jamaica took the lead through Cory Burke from the penalty spot in the 39th minute.

However, Ali Olwan tied the game 11 minutes after the break, and seven minutes later the Asians took the lead through Mamoud Al-Mardi and kept it to the end.

Although Hallgrimsson was pleased with the team’s effort in the high-press game and thought they had more than enough chances to win, he was more concerned about how they cover the gaps they leave in defence when they push forward.

He also pointed out that not having defensive midfielder Joel Lattibeaudere available because of paperwork issues was also a setback.

“First of all. It (high press) is a style we must use in some games. For example when we need a goal. So we wanted to get the experience in this game at least.

“We were hit on the counter and we need to learn from this experience. But this is a style we want in our armoury. We never know when we need to go and high press and take chances and score goals but then we must learn from this (game) and not concede when we are taking chances going forward,” he reasoned.

Despite his winless run with the Reggae Boyz, Hallgrimsson strongly believes in his methods and is convinced the results will be positive in the long term.

“From my past experience at this level, I think I know what it takes to get results. I know how to work on those things (faults). At the moment as an organisation we need to improve as well, so we can implement our work a bit better.

“But this is a formula that I have used not only once or twice but three times and I think it suits the team. But in the end it is all about results. All coaches know that if you do not get results, you do not stay endlessly in a job. But we believe in what we are doing and we will continue working this way. We know in the end it will be successful but we know as well that we need to have wins to maintain our jobs and that goes without saying,” he stated.

livingston.scott@gleanerjm.com