Melbourne Victory defender Matthew Foschini believes Saturday’s Melbourne derby will be the perfect stage to secure the club’s breakthrough win for the new Hyundai A-League season.
Foschini expects a restructured forward set up with Harry Kewell likely to play behind the strikers to pay dividends for the two-time champions who are yet to score from two outings.
“Things haven’t fallen our way,” Foschini said after training at Gosch’s Paddock on Thursday morning.
“We’ve had plenty of opportunities, especially in the Sydney game.”
“If those things click into place I’m sure we can score a bagful, we just need one or two things to go our way.”
“No doubt the pressure starts to build if you’re not performing and with the squad we’ve got we’re expected to bring home results.”
Foschini, who’s slotted neatly into the vacancy at right back created by the departure of former Thai international Surat Sukha, agreed that Heart will miss their inspirational skipper, Fred.
But they have a wealth of attacking options in the form of Alex Terra, Maycon and Foschini’s former Victory teammate Mate Dugandzic.
“I like coming up against tough opposition and more skilful players,” the 21-year-old said.
“If I can do my job and nullify a player then it should go a long way towards winning the game.”
Foschini is confident Victory can cover for suspended skipper Adrian Leijer following his controversial send-off in last Friday night’s 1-0 loss to Adelaide United.
“It wasn’t a red (card) in my view, the first yellow, but what do you do?”
“He’s going to be missed, he’s a big part of our team but we’ve got adequate replacements.”
“(Petar Franjic) showed last year in the finals series that he can step up and he’s more than capable of doing the job and helping us to get the win.”
“At youth league level I played with him on a number of occasions and we’ve got a good partnership together.”
Asked about striker David Williams’ plea to his Heart teammates to get nasty on Saturday, Foschini said: “There will be a few tackles flying in and that’s the way I like the game to be played.”
“I’m sure both teams are going to go out there with a lot of passion … and if it boils over, it boils over, I’ve got no problem with that.”
“If they want to unsettle us, we’ve got no problem … they can do what they want.”
“We’ll just ride everything, take it as it comes and we won’t take a backward step.”
