Alex Brosque has lobbed the first hand grenade of derby week, insisting Sydney FC’s recent dominance of Western Sydney will be playing on the Wanderers’ minds on Saturday night.
The Sky Blues have had the wood on their fierce neighbours of late, unbeaten in the last four Harbour City encounters, winning three of those clashes.
It has the Sydney skipper in a bullish mood ahead of this weekend’s blockbuster fixture at Allianz Stadium.
“It does get said all the time that form goes out the window and everything doesn’t matter leading into a derby but I think it does,” Brosque told reporters on Monday.
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“The fact that we’ve had the wood over them is somewhere in the back of their mind, particularly last year and the results that we had over them.
“It is a new Wanderers team to be fair to them so from our point of view those first 10, 15, 20 minutes it’s about letting them know what sort of game they’re in.”
In just three seasons the Sydney derby has already become one of the biggest fixtures on the Australian sporting calendar and more than 40,000 fans are expected to pack Allianz on Saturday night.
For a Sydney boy like Brosque, it doesn’t get any bigger.
“For me personally being a Sydney boy it’s as big as it gets,” he said.
“It’s a fantastic occasion on the sporting calendar. I think it’s become something that we probably would have never dreamed of and for me personally to be a part of it is fantastic and for the club as well it’s great,” he said.
“The build-up this week, it’s only Monday but you can already feel there’s something big coming,” he continued.
“Everyone will definitely be up for it. When a game like this comes around, you saw with the Melbourne Derby what it does, and what sort of game it brings out in the teams and in the players.
“This week won’t be any different. I’m expecting it to be fiery, I’m expecting it to be very fast and entertaining and hopefully a good result for us in the end.”
The Sky Blues have enjoyed a better start to the season than their local rivals, with a win and a draw from their opening two matches compared to a solitary point for the Wanderers.
