“We don’t fear anyone,” Perth Glory defender Scott Jamieson.
“We don’t fear anyone!”
That was the defiant message fired back by defender Scott Jamieson when asked whether Perth Glory can become only the second side to defeat Adelaide on their home patch this season.
Ian Ferguson’s men head to Hindmarsh Stadium on Friday night for a mouth-watering clash with the second-placed Reds and Jamieson is adamant that the visitors will be going all-out for the win.
“If I look at our team and the players I play with,” he said, “I’m pretty confident that we can beat anyone on our day and that includes Adelaide.
“I respect Adelaide and the boys there, but I wouldn’t change any of our players for theirs, so I’m pretty confident, very excited and eager to get there and try and get three points.
“Adelaide have been in good form throughout the whole season.
“They’ve been consistent, but Friday is a good opportunity for our boys to stand up and beat one of the top two teams.
“And it’s still all to play for.
“It’s not do or die because we’ve only played 15 games.
“It’s about slowly building momentum to hopefully have a crack at the finals.”
And those positive sentiments were echoed by fellow-former United man Travis Dodd who claimed that a higher-tempo approach could be the key as Glory look to maintain an impressive recent record of two wins and a draw from their last three visits to the South Australian capital.
“Adelaide are in great form and are certainly no easy-beats,” he said.
“But we’ve happened to get some good results there in the past, so I think we can go there being positive and get a result.
“We’ve been working on trying to look forward for our first pass and get the ball moving a bit quicker.
“That ball tempo needs to be quicker so that we can catch teams on the break and create opportunities.
“In the first-half against Sydney I thought we did that really well, but in the second-half the structure broke down a bit and we left ourselves exposed.
“We’ve got a couple of sessions before the next game and that’ll definitely be something we’ll be looking to fix.”
Dodd was also delighted to see marquee man Shane Smeltz rediscover his goal scoring touch in the 2-2 draw with Sydney and admitted that he would like to see another forward brought on board in order to bolster the club’s attacking options as the run-in to the finals hots up.
“Scoring goals brings confidence,” he said, “and having gone through a period where he wasn’t getting on the scoresheet, that was great for Shane.
“Hopefully that’ll continue.
“I think the squad is pretty good, but with Billy (Mehmet) going, it does leave a vacancy there for a striker.
“I guess we’ve only got Smeltzy and young Ndumba (Makeche) who has stepped up from the youth team but hasn’t really had an opportunity.
“So I think we need to have another goal scorer on the books, someone who can put pressure on Smeltzy because it’s always good to have that competition for places.”
The last word, meanwhile, was left to Jamieson who remains confident that a consistent run of positive results is just around the corner for the men in purple.
“I think the media has been a bit harsh on us,” he said.
“Let’s be honest about it, we’re going all right.
“We’ve had a few indifferent results but we’re not struggling and I think the media are on our backs a little bit at the moment which is fine, but inside we’re comfortable.
“We know there’s a few things we need to correct and we’ll do that.
“We’re pretty positive about things and it’ll come.”
