Perth Glory coach Dave Mitchell has been left ruing a succession of injuries and illness that’s preventing his players from gelling both on and off the pitch.
The Glory are heading to Bunbury, three hours south of Perth, to take on Gold Coast United on Saturday, but what was meant to be a four-day team-bonding camp has been drastically cut short by the run of illness and injuries the club’s facing.
Indeed Perth will be taking a patched up side into this clash, minus several of the highly-rated signings Mitchell’s brought in to bolster the squad during the off-season.
Veteran Jamie Harnwell was already absent with a six-week hamstring injury, but he’s been joined on the sidelines by former Blackburn captain Andy Todd, who’s taken a knock to his back after three superb matches against Wolverhampton, Fulham and North Queensland last week.
The club are also taking no risks with Qantas Socceroo Jacob Burns’ hamstring soreness while former Energie Cottbus striker Branko Jelic has the flu and exciting youngster Andrija Jukic is recovering from a calf injury.
There’s also fitness clouds hanging over some of those playing, as Wayne Srhoj is suffering from general soreness after playing three matches in eight days last week, with young centre back Brent Griffiths having only just recovered from the flu as well.
Mitchell admits it’s hardly the ideal preparation for playing the in-form Queenslanders, adding that he’s running out of time in his efforts to forge the newly-formed unit into a team ahead of the new Hyundai A-League season starting.
“Our biggest thing is just blending the team together and that’s where we’re losing valuable weeks now,” Mitchell said on Friday morning.
“We’ve had players training for a long time, but the actual overseas players that we signed because of their arrival, they need time to gel.”
“That’s why we wanted to go down to Bunbury and get together and have a bit of a laugh and a giggle as well as train hard, and that was taken away from us as well, so that’s a bit unfortunate.”
“(But) tonight we’ll probably just have a bit of a card night and have a bit of a laugh and sort of talk about the game and just get that bit of a feeling, get to know each other,” he said.
Mitchell also said a decision on the captaincy is yet to be made, despite media reports declaring Burns has been chosen to lead the side, taking over from last year’s skipper Jamie Coyne.
“There’s a couple of candidates, so I’m just sussing things out and I’ll bounce some ideas off some players and my assistant coaches and just get a general feel of who we think is the best person for the job,” Mitchell said.
“I’ve got an idea between two or three players but I’m close to making a decision and we’ll reveal that next week.”
