Pellegrino pushes for more

After a stellar first season Perth Glory midfielder Adriano Pellegrino is determined to avoid any chance of the second-year blues as he gears up for the new Hyundai A-League campaign.

The hardworking midfielder made an immediate impact in his debut campaign and was rewarded for his efforts with the ‘Most Glorious Player Award-, but definitely not one to rest on his laurels, Pellegrino has vowed to have a greater impact on matches in the season ahead.

“Winning the MGP last year was a big, big honour for me, especially seeing the names that had won it before,” Pellegrino said.

“When I first arrived I was just basically very honoured to play at the club and get my chance, you never take anything for granted, you just always push and push.

“Even though I played every game last year, I want to always improve and get more assists and score more goals,” Pellegrino said.

The desire to take his game to another level saw the 24 year old commit to a tough training regime before the start of Perth-s official pre-season and he has already seen the benefits in the early stages.

Getting off to a strong start will be key to Glory-s ambitions of finals football and the midfielder said there was a strong resolve amongst the group to not fall short again.

“I think everyone’s got the right focus knowing we’ve got to get off to a good start to the year,” Pellegrino said.

“You can see it in our eyes at training, everyone’s switched on and the core of the team from last season is still here plus some great new additions that are always pushing us to work harder.

“We’ve got two away games to start with, but all the boys are positive and we know if we can get off to a good start to the year, we can definitely push for the finals.

“On a personal level I didn’t have a great start to last year so my aim is to be up and going from the opening whistle and to be consistent over the whole season, not just in patches,” he said.