Sydney FC coach Vitezslav Lavicka has boldly predicted his side will return to the winners’ circle on Saturday night when they host a North Queensland Fury line-up on the rise at the SFS.
The Sky Blues suffered their first setback of the season under their softly-spoken Czech mentor last weekend, going down 2-1 to fellow high flyers Gold Coast United.
While wary of Robbie Fowler and co, Lavicka, demanded an improved performance from his charges and made it clear anything less than three points is unacceptable.
“We are going to win,” Lavicka said on the eve of the Round 6 clash.
“We know that we need to play better than last game at Gold Coast. We know that we need to play more active, more aggressive and (with) more quality, especially in attacking part.”
But as he learned in the season opener when his side scraped home with a 3-2 victory at Dairy Farmers Stadium having held and early two-goal advantage, the bottom-placed Fury must not be taken lightly.
“We are confident but we know that Fury have a very good team as well. We remember first game over there (Townsville), we were leading 2-0 but (they) don’t give up the game and try to equalise,” he said.
“It was a very tough game for us and a lucky game as well.”
Sydney FC striker John Aloisi agreed, labelling Ian Ferguson’s men a ‘massive danger’.
“You saw last week they probably should have won the game (against Brisbane Roar) even with 10 men for most of it, and also against Adelaide I thought they were unlucky to not get three points out of that game,” Aloisi said.
“I think they’ve got a really good side, they’re bottom of the table but they’re not playing like they’re bottom of the table – I think they’re going to be very tough.”
Aloisi, who has found the back of the net three times already this season, agreed Saturday’s clash would reveal a lot about the Sky Blues’ spirit.
“I thought it was a good test on the weekend when we were two goals down to see what character we’ve got as a team to see if we could get back into the game, and I thought we did,” the 33-year-old said.
“The last 20 minutes we showed that we’ve got good character and this is another test for us to see if we can bounce back and get a win straight away after a defeat.”
“It’s going to be tough because North Queensland are a good side and they’ve been playing really well the last couple of weeks and so it’s going to be a very big test for us.”
Saturday’s clash marks Aloisi’s 400th appearance at national league level following stints in England, Spain and Italy before returning to the Hyundai A-League.
