Melbourne Victory star Harry Kewell could start on the bench in Saturday’s must-win clash against Newcastle Jets with coach Jim Magilton concerned about the fitness of the Qantas Socceroo.
Melbourne Victory star Harry Kewell could start on the bench in Saturday’s must-win clash against Newcastle Jets with coach Jim Magilton concerned about the fitness of the Qantas Socceroo.
Kewell played the full 90 minutes in Australia’s 4-2 win over Saudi Arabia and arguably played the best he has since returning to home soil.
The 33-year-old scored one and was a constant threat throughout in an outstanding performance.
Kewell has traditionally struggled to back up after mid-week games and Magilton said he was still unsure whether to start the marquee man and fellow Qantas Socceroo Mark Milligan, who also played the whole match against the Saudis on Wednesday night.
“I’m thinking about a lot of things and I’m thinking about having a conversation with one or two of them,” Magilton said before training on Friday.
“There has to be a certain degree of honesty in this as well, whilst every player I would like to think wants to play and they do, I think we have to be realistic and make sure that we make the right decisions for the team and that’s a honest conversation with any player.”
“Every manager in the world has this problem when players are away on international, while it’s a feather in the cap for the club and the players it’s a difficult one because when they come back you have to weigh up everything.”
“It’s confidence levels as well, if some of them had of come back and had stinkers then maybe it’s an easier decision, but certainly it’s a decision that’ll have to be made closer to the game.”
“We’ll reach the right answer.”
Currently in eighth place on the ladder, Victory trail the sixth-placed Jets by five points and know a win on Saturday is a must if they are to sneak into the finals with just four games remaining.
Magilton hasn’t yet given up of making the top six and is confident his side can produce the necessary results to get there.
“Have to win. Obviously we’re running out of games and we need to win tomorrow. Importance of the game is such that we need to rise to the occasion and I’m confident we can,” he said.
“I’m absolutely confident that we can still get there, obviously we’ve got to win games and it’s important that we go into the game knowing we can the game.”
“There’s been a lot of positives built up over the last few weeks – second half last week I thought we were very good and unlucky not to win the game.”
Meanwhile, Magilton hoped the off-field drama surrounding Gold Coast’s termination will be resolved quickly for the good of the league’s future.
“I don’t really know where they are going with this, I don’t know why they want to get into this sort of disagreement or argument,” he said.
“My own experience in this league so far has been all positive, the league is certainly better than what I initially thought.”
“This league’s only going to get bigger and stronger if we all stick together, I would imagine that these guys if they sat around a table and thrashed out there disagreements they could reach an agreement and surely the league’s stronger with Gold Coast in it.”
