Melbourne Victory’s depth looks set to be tested this weekend against Central Coast but assistant coach Kevin Muscat remained confident his depleted team could beat the Mariners.
Melbourne Victory’s depth looks set to be tested this weekend against Central Coast but assistant coach Kevin Muscat remained confident his depleted team could beat the Mariners.
Victory will make five forced changes to the side that salvaged a remarkable 2-2 draw against the Brisbane Roar juggernaut last week.
Harry Kewell (international duty), Carlos Hernandez (international duty), Matthew Foschini (suspension), Ante Covic (suspension) and Diogo Ferreira (injury) are all unavailable for the Week 6 mid-table clash.
Despite the absence of that quality quintet, Muscat insisted a “very competitive” team would travel up to Gosford on Saturday night and that the coaching team wouldn’t make drastic changes to their tactics.
“We’ll still put a very competitive team out that we expect to go out and perform well and we’ll be going to Gosford to try and take three points,” Muscat said after training at AAMI Park on Friday.
“We’re still confident enough we’ve got enough going forward to score goals and trouble any defence.”
“I don’t think we’ll tinker too much and change too much but obviously with personnel coming in, different personalities, five different players from last weekend, there might be some minor alterations.”
“There’s a few players who have been waiting patiently for their opportunity and that comes this weekend,” he said.
Matthew Kemp and Danny Allsopp are two such players who are set to get their chance in the starting XI and Muscat intimated the latter would link up with Archie Thompson in attack.
While Muscat backed the Victory to register a winning score, he conceded it wouldn’t be an easy task given the Mariners have one of the stingiest defences in the competition.
“They’re a difficult team to break down,” he said.
“They don’t give too much away, they’re very solid, as a team they defend deep, they make it very difficult for you.”
“But it’s something we’ve worked on during the week, we’ve isolated some areas where we think we can get some joy against them and hopefully that’ll be the case tomorrow night.”
Meanwhile, Muscat admitted the Victory had to curb their recent spate of red cards which has seen three players given their marching orders in the past four weeks.
“I’m not going to shy away from the fact that it is a concern and we don’t want to put ourselves in a position where we’re playing with less men than the opposition,” Muscat said.
“But if you look at each one (red card) of them in isolation I think you’d agree it wasn’t from being on the edge or overzealous in tackles.”
