Fresh from two successive victories on the road and having regained top spot on the Hyundai A-League ladder, Melbourne Victory is set to unleash the full range of its impressive attacking arsenal following this weekend’s international break.
Victory coach Ernie Merrick revealed on Wednesday – as his team trained in stifling conditions in Melbourne – that the club expects to finally have its four best attacking weapons in Archie Thompson, Ney Fabiano, Carlos Hernandez and Daniel Allsopp all on the park for the club’s next match against Central Coast at Telstra Dome on Friday week.
It is a huge boost for a Melbourne side which regained top spot on the ladder after beating Queensland 1-0 in Brisbane last week – a win which followed on from a fantastic 3-2 win in Adelaide in a game in which only Allsopp was available from its star attacking quartet.
But with Thompson and Brazilian import Fabiano now both back from suspension and with Hernandez set to return from the quad injury that has kept him out for the past two matches, Merrick suddenly has an embarrassment of riches at his disposal.
“We will have a pretty strong squad (for the Central Coast game),” Merrick warned on Wednesday.
“I am relieved to get that sort of squad back together again because we went six weeks without being able to combine our top strikers (during Fabiano’s long ban for spitting).”
“But now we have got Fabiano and Archie Thompson (who also recently served a two match suspension) back with Carlos and Dan Allsopp and I think they will all be available for the next game.”
Merrick said Hernandez’ recovery was progressing well and he was certainly running well at training in difficult conditions on Wednesday.
“Carlos is now up to sprinting at 70 percent and he did 30 or 40 sprints today,” Merrick said of the Costa Rican international.
“So Carlos will be close to being back for the Mariners game and he is looking good.”
However Merrick said young wing-back Evan Berger will miss another match due to his injured hamstring although fellow defender Matthew Kemp should be available despite having battled a severe illness since the Queensland game.
