Melbourne Heart coach John van ‘t Schip is confident former skipper Simon Colosimo will return to the line-up for Saturday night’s blockbuster derby against the Victory at Etihad Stadium, along with goalkeeper Clint Bolton.
Melbourne Heart coach John van ‘t Schip is confident former skipper Simon Colosimo will return to the line-up for Saturday night’s blockbuster derby against the Victory at Etihad Stadium, along with goalkeeper Clint Bolton.
And van ‘t Schip again played down talk of a rift between him and Colosimo, who captained the Heart in their inaugural campaign last season only to be overlooked in favour of Fred this time around.
Colosimo didn’t play on the opening weekend of the season as the Heart went down 3-2 in Newcastle because of a strained left calf and Bolton has also been sidelined by a groin strain.
But after Colosimo turned out with the club’s National Youth League squad last weekend as the senior team went down 2-1 to Perth Glory, van ‘t Schip said he expects both to play against Victory.
“It looks very good,” van ‘t Schip said on Friday afternoon.
“They both trained very well this week and they didn’t come up with any big issues or problems.”
“We still have to wait how they react to the training from this morning (Friday) but it looks good and we’ll see if we can involve them into the game.”
“Something has to pop up tomorrow morning (for them not to play) and that’s something we’ll have to wait for but I think that it all looks quite well for them.”
Van ‘t Schip dismissed any suggestions that Colosimo has been sidelined in the opening fortnight because of his disappointment at being passed over, insisting a lack of fitness was behind his omission.
“No, (there isn’t) any doubt about that, Simon is happy, he’s trained very well this week, he played a game with the youth team,” he added.
“If you’re an experienced player like Simon with the games that he played and you see him play last week in the youth team that says enough (that he is happy at the club).”
“He’s working on getting fit and he’s fit again, he’s worked hard to get there so I think the reward is coming.”
“There’s no issue between me and Simon.”
The Dutchman also refused to be drawn on any concerns there might be a hard edge to the game after former Victory skipper Kevin Muscat’s dismissal for the ugly tackle that left Adrian Zahra sidelined with a knee injury.
While David Williams said earlier this week that his team had been “too nice” in the opening fortnight, van ‘t Schip agreed that controlled aggression is a must.
“It’s being in a good way aggressive,” van ‘t Schip said.
“One of the things that you have to do is be aggressive in the right way so that’s not something that bothers me if I read that (from my players).”
“It’s a new team, a new season and we have to just focus on what I already said, on the things we have to do tomorrow and hopefully we’ll do that in the right way and just be there and play football.”
“And all the other things, that’s things that are made up by the media … it’s really not important for us.”
With Matt Thompson to assume the captaincy, van ‘t Schip also said the absence of Fred with a hamstring injury is offset by his opposite number Adrian Leijer’s suspension.
