Brisbane Roar coach Ange Postecoglou says his competition-leading side are primed to play their best football of the season as they strive for top gear in the build-up to the Hyundai A-League finals.
Brisbane Roar coach Ange Postecoglou says his competition-leading side are primed to play their best football of the season as they strive for top gear in the build-up to the Hyundai A-League finals.
Having gone undefeated in their last 19 games the Roar now enjoy a favourable run home and the return of key personnel as they look to extend their 11-point lead at the top of the A-League table.
Star midfielder Thomas Broich is set to start against Perth Glory at Suncorp Stadium on Friday night, after missing Brisbane’s 1-0 win over Adelaide, while livewire attacker Henrique is pushing for a greater workload after his successful return from a fractured arm last weekend.
“I certainly think that with our schedule and the games we’ve got and where we’ve got them, if we’ve done our work well we should be flying in these last half a dozen games,” said Postecoglou.
“As far as I’m concerned, we should be playing our best football now.”
The Roar have lost just once all season – away to the Victory in their fifth game -and Postecoglou says the incredible streak sits well with his confident playing group, rubbishing the suggestion of a need for a pressure-breaking pre-finals defeat.
“We had a tough time last year and we lost a few games, so maybe we used all our losses last year. I don’t want another loss, to be honest. I don’t think you need one.”
“I think what you’ve got to try to do is just keep building on what you’ve got. I don’t think it builds any extra pressure; if anything it works the other way. It just gives the boys more belief in what we’re doing,” said Postecolgou.
Motivation hasn’t been hard to come by for Brisbane in 2010-11, and after meeting every challenge thrown at them thus far, their instrumental leader assures there will be no complacency in the camp.
For all of the Roar’s regular season success there have been many who have been eager to point out that it hasn’t earned them any silverware for their trophy cabinet.
Postecoglou concedes the point, confident and determined that, in time, the Roar will be able to silence all critics.
“We know that people say finals football’s what it’s all about and winning trophies. Everyone keeps saying that we haven’t won anything, and that’s true,” he said.
“When we win something (the premiership) they’ll be saying we haven’t won a finals series yet, and that’ll be true too, but you can’t do any of those things until they come around.”
“We can’t do that now, so all we can do is keep winning games of football and playing as well as we can.”
