Melbourne Victory coach Ange Postecoglou believes that his side are on track in their preparations for the derby in the first round of the season, even if he may be missing some key players to international duty.
Speaking after his side’s friendly loss to Newcastle, Postecoglou was quick to shrug off the result, and was upbeat about how his side was looking despite having suffered back to back losses to A-League opposition in recent weeks.
” I thought our football was really good today. I was really happy with it so it shows we’re on the right track and I’ve got no doubt come first round we’ll be right,” he said.
“It was a good hit out for us. We kind of put some objectives out to the boys and it seemed to work well.”
The goal that Victory wanted proved elusive, but the front three of Nichols, Pain and Barbarouses were playing together for the first time, and there were positive signs shown.
“[I] just wanted to make sure we worked really hard, pressing in the front third and see if we could cause some turnover of the ball and we did. I think right from the first minute Mitch had the one with Birrighiti and we did that quite often,” he said.
“Kosta got in behind quite a few times which was good, Connor got in behind which is, we really want to penetrate with our wide guys and it was good to see.”
With Archie Thompson absent through illness, Gui Finkler was handed his first start since coming back from injury and showed plenty of promise in the one half that he spent on the field.
“The good thing is that’s 45 under his belt now and we’ll try to get him some more game time,” he said.
“Once he gets up to speed he’ll be a handy addition for us but the attacking threats we had out there today, the chances we created, and then you throw Archie and Gui fully fit into the mix we’re going to have some good firepower.”
Playing what he admitted was his best line-up minus Thompson, Postecoglou sees this sort of preparation as key to the opening weekend, especially with the international fixtures threatening to wreak havoc on selection.
“We’re going to be hit with international commitments first round we might not have two or three players so it’s important that everyone in our team is in good knick coming into that first game,” he said.
The prospect of a new marquee also brings a boost to the Victory’s preparations, with Postecogl0u hopeful of getting the deal done sooner rather than later.
” We’re in the final stages hopefully but you never know until you get it over the line, but [we’re] pretty hopeful of making the signing before the weekend.”