Perth Glory coach Dave Mitchell will experiment with a different line-up to the one which featured against Wolverhampton Wanderers last Friday night when the club takes on Fulham on Wednesday.
Perth Glory coach Dave Mitchell will experiment with a different line-up to the one which featured against Wolverhampton Wanderers last Friday night when the club takes on Fulham on Wednesday.
Perth impressed in the pre-season friendly against Wolves and will be looking to further their preparations when they entertain a second English Premier League club within a week.
But Mitchell will be taking a ‘no risks- approach into a fixture where the result means little in the overall scheme of the season.
“At the minute we-ll just address a couple of injuries, there are a couple of players that we-re not sure about just yet,” Mitchell said.
“We-ll address that when it comes and I don-t know the side yet, we-ve got to monitor the team today and tomorrow and then we-ll have another look. There will be different combinations I want to look at as well and that is what pre-season is about.
“Eugene (Dadi) has got a bit of a knock and he-s probably not going to train today, so we-re just going to see how he pulls up. There-s Jimmy Downey as well. We just don-t want to play players and make them worse if they-ve got niggling injuries.”
One player certain to miss the Fulham clash is promising attacker Andrija Jukic. Scans late last week revealed that the local product has a tear in his left calf, which will keep him out of action for at least a fortnight.
New signing Chirs Coyne arrived in Perth over the weekend and joined his Glory teammates for a light training run this morning however the Socceroos defender appears unlikely to play on Wednesday as he concentrates on a return to full fitness.
“I-m 60-70 per cent right now… I-ve only sort of had 10 days off and I-ve been looking after myself while I-ve been back in Europe,” Coyne said.
“It-s just a matter of getting back into the swing of things, getting the body back into overtime and looking forward to starting to play some games.
“I-m not sure about Wednesday yet, I only landed 24 hours ago. We-re going to reassess my fitness and then go from there.”
North Queensland Fury, who takes on Wolves in the first match of Wednesday-s double-header at Member Equity Stadium, will train on Monday afternoon after arriving in town for Wednesday-s clash.
The Townsville-based outfit is one of two new clubs to join the Hyundai A-League this season, along with Gold Coast United, and have signed former Liverpool legend Robbie Fowler as their marquee player for the next two seasons.
Fowler travelled with the team and is expected to make his Australian debut at Members Equity Stadium on Wednesday.
