Brisbane Roar Head Coach Ange Postecoglou is comfortable with the depth of his squad heading into this weekend’s clash with the Newcastle Jets at Ausgrid Stadium.
Brisbane Roar Head Coach Ange Postecoglou is comfortable with the depth of his squad heading into this weekend-s clash with the Newcastle Jets at Ausgrid Stadium.
Missing three players with Qantas Olyroos duty, including regular starters Mitch Nichols and Matt Jurman, Postecoglou will take a slightly different looking team into the match.
The changes will include a first start for Brisbane for Bahrain international defender Mohamed Adnan.
Adnan was a runner up in the 2009 Asian Footballer of the Year award and illustrates Postecoglou-s shrewd recruiting over the off-season to cater for just such a situation.
“It-s the reason we brought (Adnan) in, we knew we-d have some international commitments this year,” Postecoglou said. “It was really important we had cover when that happened.
“Mo-s been pretty patient to be fair to him, waiting for his opportunity.
“We-ll throw him in tomorrow and I-m sure he-ll do well.
“We-ve prided ourselves on the fact that if we have had players missing we don-t miss a beat.
“Certainly going into this week we don-t think we-re understrength or missing anything.
“We-re really happy with the team we-re travelling down with.”
Adnan has looked sharp on the training track in the build-up to the match, along with most of his team mates.
Postecoglou said a change to the training structure as the club headed towards its maiden AFC Champions League appearance had helped freshen the entire squad.
“The boys are pretty excited about the next two to three weeks,” he said. “We-ve just started to ease off on their training load.
“They-re a little bit happier because we-ve been smashing them at training the first few weeks.
“We-re heading into that period now where we-ve got midweek games and then obviously AFC Champions League tacked on to the end of the season.
“That means they-re feeling a bit fresher in themselves, I just get the sense watching them train the last couple of days that they-re fairly bright and looking forward to the game.”
Newcastle Jets vs. Brisbane Roar
Saturday, 19 November 2011
Venue: Ausgrid Stadium
Kick-Off: 4.30pm (AEST)
TV Broadcast: Fox Sports 1
Radio broadcaster: 1233 ABC Newcastle
Head-to-Head: All matches (played 19): Newcastle Jets wins 7, Brisbane Roar wins 6 (6
draws)
Newcastle Jets squad: 1. Ben Kennedy (gk), 2. Taylor Regan, 4. Nikolai Topor-Stanley, 5. Tiago Calvano, 6. Ben Kantarovski, 7. Kasey Wehrman, 8. Jeremy Brockie, 10. Ruben Zadkovich, 11. Tarek Elrich, 12. Jobe Wheelhouse (c), 13. Sung-Hwan Byun, 14. Labinot Haliti, 17. James Virgili, 22. Ali Abbas, 23. Ryan Griffiths, 30. Jack Duncan (gk)
*three to be omitted*
In: 17. James Virgili, 22. Ali Abbas, 30. Jack Duncan (gk) (promoted)
Out: 19. Matthew Nash (gk) (omitted)
Unavailable: 18. Marko Jesic (international duty)
Brisbane Roar Squad: 1. Michael Theoklitos (GK), 2. Matt Smith (Capt.), 3. Shane Stefanutto, 5. Ivan Franjic, 6. Erik Paaratlu, 7. Besart Berisha, 8. Massimo Murdocca, 10. Henrique, 11. Issey Nakajima-Farran, 14. Rocky Visconte, 16. Mohamed Adnan, 18. Luke Brattan, 19. Jack Hingert, 21. James Meyer, 22. Thomas Broich, 30. Matt Acton (GK)
*one to be omitted*
In: James Meyer (promoted), Jack Hingert (promoted), Rocky Visconte (promoted)
Out: 4. Matt Jurman (international duty), 9. Kofi Danning (international duty)
Unavailable: 17. Mitch Nichols (International duty), 12. Matt Mundy (suspended – 1 week), 20 Andrew Redmayne (abdominal injury – 3 weeks)
