Melbourne City boss Aurelio Vidmar admits he won’t be relying on Socceroo Mathew Leckie just yet to fill the void left by the injured duo of Andrew Nabbout and Marco Tilio.
Both Nabbout and Tilio were casualties from Monday night’s 1-0 win over Western United with the former now ruled out for the remainder of the campaign after rupturing the Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) in his right knee.
The news is slightly better for Celtic loanee Tilio who is now likely to miss up to eight weeks of football after suffering a partial tear to his left hamstring tendon.
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Already depleted due to injuries and suspension, City fans were given a huge boost on Monday night though with the sight of Socceroo Leckie making his first appearance of the season following injury.
Coming on in the final stages to help see his side over the line against Western, Leckie returned after overcoming a quad injury sustained in pre-season and Vidmar is now keen to increase his match minutes against Perth Glory this weekend.
“Well that’s the plan,” said Vidmar at his pre-match press conference ahead of their trip to Perth.
“I think he had twenty odd minutes last week, so that was good. He’s pulled up pretty well and (we’re) just slowly trying to build him up.
“Obviously they’re all important players but you know, someone with Mat’s experience, he can play a variety of roles. You know, we really need him.
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“He’s not going to be at the top of his game right now, but if he continues to get minutes again on the weekend, and then we have a almost a three week break until our next game,
He continued: “We can build him up again through that period, albeit no games, (but) we’ll have an internal trial somewhere in the second to last week, I’d say, just to give him some match sharpness.”
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Another huge positive for Vidmar will be returning Socceroo James Jeggo, who is now available having served a two-match ban following his sending off against Newcastle Jets in Round One.
“Yeah, he’s back in the squad this week and we missed his experience and his wise head.
“But he’s worked hard in his two weeks off. It hasn’t been easy and that also goes for Aziz (Behich) you know, a couple of key guys that we were missing. But he’s trained well and he’s in the squad, so let’s see where it goes.”
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City head west on Sunday when they face Perth Glory at HBF Park.
Now finally off and running in this Isuzu UTE A-League season after picking up a point on the road against reigning Champions Central Coast Mariners in Round Three, Vidmar is expecting a tricky encounter against a Glory side who knocked City out of the Australia Cup with a 5-4 win in the round of 32.
“It’s always a tricky game this one,” said Vidmar when looking ahead to the Round Four encounter.
“We’ve just got to think about doing the things that we have done throughout our preseason. We showed that against Newcastle, we only showed that (for) half a game against Victory and we showed it for 90 minutes plus against Western United.
He went on to say: “Perth is typical… when they start to get momentum, they’re very hard to stop and we found that in the in the Cup game that we played in pre-season.
“We were comfortable at one stage in the game and all of a sudden, a second goal or a couple of shots on target and then the crowd really gets behind them and the momentum really starts. So we have to be mindful of those moments.”
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