Perth Glory coach Dave Mitchell says his side will not be getting complacent as it looks to spoil Adelaide United’s homecoming party in their Hyundai A-League clash on Sunday.
Mitchell admitted the Reds may be exhausted having flown to Uzbekistan and back for their midweek Asian Champions League semi-final clash with Bunyodkor-Kuruvchi but feels the adrenalin rush of becoming the first Australian club to advance to the ACL final will carry the Reds through the pain barrier.
“It’s a challenge for us, they’re one of the best teams in Asia now,” said Mitchell on Friday.
“I’d just like to say it’s fantastic for the Hyundai A-league and Adelaide and (Reds’ coach Aurelio) Vidmar and it’s good for Australian football.”
“(So) they’ll be coming off a high (and) a lot of people have talked about their jetlag which might take effect but still, in essence the euphoria of the scenario will help them I think and it’ll be a good clash.”
After just one victory from the first seven matches of the season and having conceded 20 goals during that period, the Glory got their campaign back on track through an impressive 2-1 victory over Sydney last weekend.
And Mitchell believes the confidence-boosting win will give his side the edge, despite Adelaide’s good result during the week.
“We’ve had a couple of bad performances, so I think we’re due a couple of good ones,” Mitchell said.
“And I think the good thing about last week was we looked solid all over and we looked very competitive and we looked threatening which was good.”
“If we take that form into this weekend’s game, Adelaide will have a tough game.”
Perth striker Eugene Dadi will miss the clash after injuring his groin in the warm-up before the clash with Sydney. But defender Dino Djulbic will return from a five-match suspension, giving Mitchell a major selection headache, following his defence’s best match of the season last weekend.
“He’s been out for five weeks and he’s been sorely missed. He comes back to the squad and I’ve got to calculate now … whether he comes back in or not,” said Mitchell.
“But it was a good performance last week by our boys, so you like to have faith in the players that played well.”
