- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
Coach Kevin Muscat is adamant his Melbourne Victory team can break through the Western Sydney Wanderers’ well organised and miserly defence.
The Wanderers have some useful psychological ammunition as they travel south to meet the Victory at AAMI Park on Saturday night in a keenly-anticipated clash of the A-League’s second and third placed teams.
They’ve beaten the Victory in their past three encounters. They have also conceded fewer goals – seven in 11 matches – than any other team.
But Muscat insists his team has no fear of the visitors’ and can close the ladder gap on them.
“You can’t tell me that they’re (Wanderers) harder to play than any other team in the comp,” Muscat said.
“We’ve just got to concentrate on what we do and hopefully we’ll get close to our best because once we do we’re a threat for the opposition.
“When we’re attacking teams we’re a handful for any team.”
He added: “My main concern is that teams don’t like playing against us. That’s what we’ve worked on throughout the week and hopefully will produce.”
If the Victory are to penetrate the Wanderers’ defence, they’ll have to do it without Socceroos striker Archie Thompson, who remains sidelined with a hamstring injury.
Thompson failed to train in the final session on Friday and will sit out his fourth consecutive match with youngster Connor Pain taking his place.
Muscat will field an unchanged line-up, resisting the urge to start in-form Brazilian midfielder Gui Finkler ahead of James Troisi.
It is almost a year to the day since Finkler suffered a knee injury against Western Sydney that ended his 2012-13 season.
He has has come off the bench in all 11 games this season, scoring twice.
“We had a look at a couple of things but I thought we played very well last week to get the result and we played some good stuff,” Muscat said.
“Gui’s been great and he’s come on and done exceptionally well for us.
“We know a lot more about Gui and his body than everyone else and I will be using him accordingly.”
After knocking over premiers Central Coast Mariners 2-0 in a grand final replay Wanderers coach Tony Popovic said his team was intent on collecting a third straight scalp.
“”We want to keep it going. We’ve had two consecutive wins and we want to make it three,” Popovic said.
“So we’ll go there and give it our best and try to put on a very good performance and if we do that we give ourselves a chance.”
Are you the ultimate team manager? Pick your own superstar team and go head to head with other football fans for glory and cash prizes on Draftstars. Imagine what you could be buying instead. Set a deposit limit.