Perth Glory coach Ian Ferguson is expecting a much greater attacking threat from Wellington in Saturday’s minor semi-final than Melbourne Heart provided a week ago.
Perth Glory coach Ian Ferguson is expecting a much greater attacking threat from Wellington in Saturday’s minor semi-final than Melbourne Heart provided a week ago.
But the Glory’s weapons going forward could be limited after attacking midfielder Steven McGarry suffered a knock in training on Friday morning.
The Scotsman had heavy strapping and ice on his left calf and will be assessed later on Friday, with Perth potentially having to reshuffle their line-up if it keeps him out of Saturday’s game.
Before that incident, Ferguson said he was expecting the Phoenix to approach the game much differently and attack with vigour after watching the Heart go against their free-flowing instincts to sit back in last week’s elimination final and lose 3-0 to the Glory.
The Perth coach said an end-to-end contest was likely at nib Stadium, the winner of which will advance to the Hyundai A-League preliminary final to face either Brisbane or Central Coast for the right to advance to the Grand Final.
“There were a few people unhappy and saying that it wasn’t a great game but you’re going to get that tension in some of these games,” Ferguson said of the win against Melbourne.
“(Heart) sat back and tried to hit us on the counter attack but I’m sure (Wellington) will be totally different.”
“Our plan was to not let their good players play and get on the ball and squeeze them tightly. We did a very good job of that. But on the other side we didn’t create as many chances as I wanted us to.”
“That could’ve been down to three or four players coming back from injury. Now they’ve got a week under their belts at training and also had a good game under their belts.”
“I’m expecting we’ll be a lot more fluent this week.”
Ferguson said the fixture would carry some extra spice thanks to the war of words that developed after the Phoenix’s Ben Sigmund labelled Perth a one-man team in the form of Smeltz.
Smeltz described those comments as “crazy” and Glory captain Jacob Burns hit back by suggesting Wellington’s only threat was Paul Ifill.
“This is what finals football is all about,” Ferguson said.
“It’s all about the razzamatazz and trying to wind each other up and so on but I’m sure (Sigmund) knows we’re not a one-man team.”
