The Queensland Roar are primed to progress through to their first Hyundai A-League grand final according to goalkeeper Liam Reddy.
Reddy is adamant that his side’s depth will prove decisive in its cutthroat preliminary final clash with Adelaide United on Saturday night at Hindmarsh Stadium.
The 27-year-old has been taken aback by the fierce competition for spots within the team and it’s a situation that he believes has the Roar in a more advanced position than 12 months ago when they lost to Newcastle in the penultimate match of the season.
“I think that’s the good thing about this year,” he said. “We’e got a lot more depth than last season and that’s across the board with (second-choice keeper) Griff (McMaster) and anyone else who’s stepped in.”
“You only have to look at Mitch Nichols, he took his spot five or six weeks ago when Charlie (Miller) had his hernia operation and he hasn’t looked back.”
“He’s probably been one of our best players of the last four or five weeks so it’s a good squad we’ve got this year.”
Reddy also thinks that having Miller and prolific goalscorer Sergio van Dijk in the team against Adelaide will hold it in good stead to book a date with Melbourne in the grand final at Telstra Dome on February 28.
“Serge has been banging them in lately quite regularly and he’s been playing really well,” he said.
Although Adelaide has had a fortnight it would rather forget, which saw it lose to the Victory 6-0 on aggregate in their Major Semi-Final, Reddy is expecting a tough encounter this weekend.
“I know that they’re going to group together, have a good week at training and they’re going to try to prove a lot of people wrong,” he said.
“We don’t want to be that team that got beaten by Adelaide after what happened against Melbourne, we don’t want to be here next year saying ‘you’ve lost the last two games at this point'”.
“We want to be that team playing Melbourne in the Grand Final and playing in the Asian Cup the year after.”
