Melbourne Victory striker Danny Allsopp says the club’s heavy travel schedule at present is no excuse for any drop off in form from the Hyundai A-League leaders.
The Victory travels across the other side of the country this week to take on Perth Glory just a week after crossing the Tasman to take on Wellington, a game in which Melbourne suffered a shock 2-1 loss.
And the clash against Perth is followed by a week’s break for the club – following the postponement to January of the club’s home match against World Club Championship bound Adelaide United – and then yet another away game against Newcastle.
While Melbourne has the luxury of finishing the season with five of its last six matches at Telstra Dome after the Christmas break, the next two away trips will mean the club will have played five of its past six matches on the road.
However despite last week’s slip-up – after Allsopp had given Melbourne the lead with his seventh goal of the season – the Victory still sits in top place on the ladder some two points clear of Adelaide and five points inside the top four.
But Allsopp knows the club can’t afford any more defeats in coming weeks if it wants to hold onto that all-important top spot and says despite the Victory being forced to travel to Perth just a week after making an equally long journey in the opposite direction to Wellington, that was no excuse for the club not to put on an improved showing this week.
“It’s been a tough fortnight with a trip to Wellington (which is two hours ahead of Melbourne) and now a trip to Perth (which is two hours behind Melbourne) and I know I was waking up at some funny times over the weekend (back in Melbourne following Friday’s loss in Wellington),” Allsopp said on Tuesday.
“But you get over it and you can’t complain too much because it (playing football) is a pretty good job and I enjoy it.”
Allsopp said the Victory will have plenty of time to re-adjust their body clocks for Saturday night’s trip west.
“I feel all right now,” he said.
“We’ve got a longer week this week, we’ve got eight days so we’ve got plenty of time.”
“So we’ll get over to Perth and we’re all professional and fit players so we should be all right.”
“We all knew the dangers of Wellington last week, they’d won two in a row (coming into the game) so I don’t think anyone took it easy.”
“We just didn’t play well on the day, that happens and now we’ve got a game in Perth this week to bounce back.”
