Perth Glory coach Ian Ferguson has likened the club’s Christmas clash with Adelaide United to a ‘Cup Final’ as the club desperately tries to keep their finals dream alive.
Slumping to last place on the Hyundai A-League table after North Queensland defeated Sydney last week, the Glory failed to climb above their rivals when they lost 2-0 to Melbourne Victory on the weekend.
But Christmas is the time for miracles and interim coach Ian Ferguson believes his side can knock off the league’s second-placed side on Wednesday night if they treat this match like it’s the game of their lives.
“This is a Cup Final for us and a massive game for the club,” declared Ferguson.
“The signs are there but everyone’s getting a bit restless with results and rightly so,” he said referring to the fact Perth has won just one of the last 16 games as a bright start to the campaign went horribly wrong.
“This is a big club and they demand the best and they want to get up there and challenge and at this point we aren’t and we’ve got to turn this around.”
“I’m just hoping the New Year will bring better things for us.”
“(But) it’s a massive, massive game for us on Wednesday.”
Glory have lost 2-0 to Adelaide on two occasions this season, but in both those matches the teams appeared evenly matched, although Adelaide found the clinical edge in front of goal the Glory lacked.
“They’ve got pace, they’ve got strength,” said Ferguson. “From (Travis) Dodd to (Marcos) Flores to (Sergio) van Dijk.”
“We’ve got to close them down. We’ve played them twice this year and they’ve beat us twice 2-0.”
“Again on reflection of the games, if we put our chances away it could have been a totally different game.”
“But unfortunately for us they get the first goal and heads go down and we seem to be behind the eight ball.”
“The key here is to try to get the goal first and put Adelaide on the back foot.”
“They’ll be dangerous, they’re coming off a defeat as well,” he added referring to Melbourne Heart’s sensational 2-1 victory over the Reds, where the Melbourne side scored twice in the last five minutes.
“We’re at home, we played really well here against Central Coast Mariners and we’ll be looking for the same sort of performance and hopefully we can be a bit ruthless in front of goal.”
