Central Coast coach Lawrie McKinnna will instruct his team to ‘go in for the kill’ when the Mariners tackle beaten Asian Champions League finalists Adelaide in the Round 11 Hyundai A-League match at Gosford on Saturday night.
Victory will see the Mariners leapfrog several teams, including Adelaide, into second place, while defeat will put enormous pressure on the Central Coast club.
The Mariners already boast one of the best attacking combinations in the league, but McKinna believes Adelaide will be vulnerable early in the crucial clash at Bluetongue Stadium.
“What Adelaide achieved in the Asian Champions League is fantastic but they’ve had a big work load, we need to take advantage of that and put pressure on them from the start,” McKinna said.
“I’m pretty sure they’ll come and play a cautious game but if we can snatch an early goal I think it’ll be hard for them to recover physically and mentally. That’s what we’ll be aiming for.”
The Mariners are not short of goalscoring threats with McKinna again expected to start with three strikers – Matt Simon, Sasho Petrovski and Dylan Macallister.
All are in good goalscoring form and are raring to go. Simon is still a slight doubt with a knee injury but McKinna is hopeful the competition’s equal leading goalscorer will start. Nik Mrdja, who netted in the club’s 3-3 draw with Sydney two weeks ago, will again offer plenty coming off the bench.
“It (playing with three strikers) has worked for us over the past few weeks so there’s no reason to change,” McKinna said.
Meanwhile, McKinna will not finalise his side until game day with injury concerns still hanging over defenders Nigel Boogaard (concussion), Andrew Clark (shoulder) and Paul O’Grady (groin).
