Sydney FC coach Vitezslav Lavicka has revealed former Socceroos striker John Aloisi is set to be called in from the cold to start against North Queensland on Saturday night in a desperate bid to snap a three-game losing streak.
The Sky Blues’ $1m-a-year man has been used sparingly this season, injury condemning him to bit-parts off the bench as Lavicka preferred Mark Bridge and Alex Brosque up front.
But after a bright performance as a second-half replacement in last Sunday’s 3-1 loss to Newcastle – and with Sydney now a distant second to Victory on the Hyundai A-League table – Aloisi is likely to begin the match against the Robbie Fowler-led Fury at the SFS.
It will be only his seventh starting appearance for the year.
“Johnny’s an important player for us. To have him on the pitch is good,” Lavicka declared on Thursday.
“He is ready and he brings benefits for the team.”
“Johnny is ready to play, Johnny is a good player (and) he played pretty good last game.”
“He is ready to start. I don’t like to say two-three days before the game but we are going to make some changes.”
Aloisi may be joined at some stage by exciting Young Qantas Socceroos forward Kofi Danning, who has been given the all-clear to play again after overcoming a hand injury.
Lavicka will ring the changes in the hope of shaking the mid-season lethargy that has allowed Melbourne to open up a five-point lead at the head of the table.
“It is hard because the season is long and every team goes through a period of being down,” Lavicka explained.
“We are a little bit down now but I watched the desire from the players at training and we want to improve (things).”
“The first part of the season we had good results but the last games, especially, we had big problems defending.”
“We made lazy tactical mistakes and the opponent punished us.”
“We talked about the weaknesses and now we need to do it better.”
“We need to play as we played the first part of the season.”
The Fury walked away 1-0 victors the last time they were in Sydney, courtesy of a Fowler screamer.
But Sydney midfielder Terry McFlynn is confident lightning won’t strike twice.
“He’s a fantastic player, has been for 15-20 years in the English Premier League,” McFlynn said of Fowler.
“He scored a great goal here last time, but they’ve got good players all over the park so we-re not focusing on one player in particular.”
