Brisbane have suffered a double blow ahead of their match against Perth on Saturday with Michael Theo and Jade North both ruled out due to injury.
Brisbane have suffered a double blow ahead of their match against Perth at Suncorp Stadium on Saturday evening with goalkeeper Michael Theo and defender Jade North both ruled out due to injury.
Theo has succumbed to a shoulder ailment which has been aggravating him for the past fortnight, while North has suffered a recurrence of a groin complaint.
The absence of four-time championship-winner Theo means reserve goalkeeper Matt Acton has finally been named to debut after sitting on the bench 45 times since joining the Roar in 2010.
Roar coach Mike Mulvey did not believe a change of goalkeepers would disrupt his side and he had full confidence that Acton would get the job done against the Glory.
“He has been trained for this, he’s been selected for this and it’s his turn now so I’m sure he’ll step up to the plate,” Mulvey said of Acton.
“He is just one of 11 (players), that’s our mantra, that’s the way we look at things.
“Matty is one of us, we’ve got faith in him, he’s going to come in and he’s going to do a good job.”
Mulvey only expected Theo and North to miss one match each and the Roar coach revealed the duo were sidelined this week to avoid exacerbating their respective injuries.
“He (North) has a similar issue with before the Central Coast game, he’s got a slight groin strain,” Mulvey said.
“It’s just tightening, what we’re going to do is bring Donks (James Donachie) in and the reasoning behind that is that if we push these guys…it’ll make it a three-to-four-week injury rather than just a one-game injury.”
Despite Besart Berisha’s sensational return to the starting line-up for Brisbane’s victory over Western Sydney last week, Mulvey doubted the Albanian star would play more than an hour against the Glory.
“We’ll play it by ear, he’s going in, he’s 100 percent fit but what you don’t want to do is you don’t want to take him to that point of fatigue where he’s stretching and he’s doing things under a real fatigue situation,” the Roar boss said.
Mulvey was also reluctant to increase Kwame Yeboah’s game time off the bench too drastically either despite the generously-talented striker’s impressive recent form, which has included a pair of stunning goals.
The Roar aren’t the only ones with injury concerns heading into the weekend’s clash in Brisbane with Perth also missing Jacob Burns (suspension) and William Gallas (injury).
But Mulvey wasn’t buying into the theory that those two big omissions left Alistair Edwards’ men vulnerable.
“They’ve got players to cover that, it’ll probably make them hungrier, the players that are coming in as well,” Mulvey said.
Meanwhile, in a boost for Brisbane, midfielder Liam Miller could be considered for selection for their Round 9 clash against Adelaide.
The Irishman has been sidelined with a calf injury since Round 3.