Gold Coast United goalkeeper Jess Vanstrattan has designated Sunday’s second M1 derby against Brisbane Roar at Suncorp Stadium as United’s chance to resurrect its recent form slump.
United took the points back in Round 1 with a swift 3-1 win, however derby two will be a different story, as both clubs look to fill first team voids left by international call ups, suspension and injury.
Vanstrattan, who has spent time at Serie A giants Juventus, has had a frustrating return to Australia, making just three Hyundai A-league appearances for GCU, a string of injuries plaguing the shotstopper from returning to full fitness.
“At the moment we haven’t been doing as well as we had like, so this is the week to turn things around … we’ve been looking at Brisbane, obviously like we do every team week in week out,” Vanstrattan said.
“We’ve got a few things as a team we’ve got to fix up and we’ve been working on that during the week, hopefully we can put that together on Sunday,”
“I’m still a long way from 100 percent, but everyone is working in the right directions to get things right, I’ve had a lot of unfortunate injuries and things haven’t gone the right way.” he said.
While Brisbane came out firing against Melbourne last week, dishing out rough treatment to former player Robbie Kruse, Vanstrattan has indicated that United will shy away from thuggish tactics and concentrate more on its own game.
“Obviously when you play you want to dominate and get on top from the start, (but) we aren’t going to target any one player, we just have to work as a unit, the whole 11 on the pitch.”
“We have to worry about ourselves more than anything, get things right on the park that we aren’t doing right,”
“We haven’t had the starting 11 playing together for a long time, (and) we understand that we have had a lot of injuries, but they (Brisbane) have a few players that are out so its going to be a test for both teams.”
Struggling for consistency once again, Gold Coast will be without Captain Jason Culina, who played for the Qantas Socceroos in Saturday night’s scoreless draw against the Netherlands, while talisman Shane Smeltz played in the All Whites team that drew 0-0 against Bahrain in the first leg of the World Cup qualifier.
Frank Farina’s Roar has its own selection headaches, with four key players from its starting 11 absent. Craig Moore is on national duty, slick forward Henrique is out with a serious knee injury and both hard-men Danny Tiatto and Charlie Miller are serving suspensions.
On the plus for Gold Coast, midfield work-horse Steve Pantelidis returns after serving his suspension for accumulating five yellow cards while former Roar man and Qantas Young Socceroo Tahj Minniecon returns to fill the void left by Smeltz.
