Sydney FC manager Steve Corica says the Hyundai A-League is yet to see the best from Siem De Jong as the Sky Blues chase down a top two spot.
De Jong, on loan from Ajax, made his first appearance since injuring his knee in January and marked his return with a clever goal in the Sky Blues’ 3-1 win over Brisbane Roar at Suncorp Stadium on Friday night.
REPORT: Clinical Sydney FC ease past Roar in Brisbane
REACTION: De Jong shows his class
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Corica fired off a warning in his post-match press conference, saying the Dutchman has yet to show his full potential.
“[I’m] pleased for him, he’s worked hard to get back fit,” Corica said.
“He was on a good run before he got injured, scored in his last game and in his first game back he’s scored again which is great and it was a vital goal for us, it made the game done and dusted.
“We’ve still got four games in the A-League plus finals and then Champions League games as well which he’s going to be involved in and we need him match fit.
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“We see him at training so we see the best of him. You probably haven’t seen the best of Siem yet other than a couple of the fantastic goals he has scored so far but it’s vital for us to keep him fit and everyone else because we haven’t really had that option this year.”
Sydney have had rotten luck with injuries this campaign, losing the likes of De Jong, Danny De Silva, Ben Warland and Trent Buhagiar for long periods.
Corica said the return of De Jong and De Silva was an enormous boost to their Championship hopes.
“We’ve had three players that have done knees and have been out long term, Benny Warland the latest one. I thought he’d been doing a great job when he stepped back in and Danny and Siem as well have been out for long periods of time so we’ve never had the opportunity to have everyone available so it’s good to have that now.”
Same old story
Spare a thought for Roar interim manager Darren Davies.
Since taking over from John Aloisi in December, Davies has lost star striker Adam Taggart to South Korea as well as key players Brett Holman, Stefan Mauk and almost an entire back line.
After conceding in the first minute of play, it looked like the hosts were in for another long evening but they were able to go with Sydney until two late goals killed their resistance.
Davies said the players worked incredibly hard but once again were left behind by a chasm in quality.
“When they have that quality coming off the bench it’s very powerful but we can’t do anything about that, we’ve got to focus on us,” Davies told reporters post-match.
“We worked all week on having a good start….that was that, 1-0 down. I thought they were the better team in the first half but we were still in the game. I don’t think [Jamie] Young had another major save to make.
“We spoke about still being in the game at half-time then we come out, got to 60-65 minutes, made positive subs, changed formation, scored a good goal, got back in the game and we think right, ok but the quality that came off the bench was very strong for them and they ran out winners in the end.”
