Brisbane Roar Head Coach Warren Moon has his heart set on a spot in the FFA Cup’s final four despite being handed a long absentee list for the Quarter Final clash with Sydney FC on Wednesday.
Experienced defenders Tom Aldred, Jack Hingert and Corey Brown will not make the gameday trip to Netstrata Jubilee Stadium as they continue their respective injury recovery programs.
Anton Mlinarić is also unavailable due to the terms of his loan agreement, while Jez Lofthouse and Henry Hore remain cup tied.
Meanwhile, forward Nikola Mileusnić has been given time away from the group on compassionate grounds following the sad news of a close family bereavement.
“We have our challenges,” Moon said. “The same day travel has been placed on us, so we’ll have to fly in and fly out [on Wednesday]. And we have a few unavailable players.
“We want to win. We’re in a tough spot right now, we understand that, and it could get tougher with a few players missing.
“But at the end of the day, we’re here to do our very best for Brisbane Roar. We want to win this game on Wednesday and we want to be as prepared as well as possible to do that.
“We have challenges with travel, with availability, but we’re going to go out there to give a good account of ourselves and try to get the win to progress to the Semi Finals.”
The occasion marks a return to match action for Brisbane following the postponement of last weekend’s much-anticipated home meeting with Perth Glory, which was put on hold after the visitors recorded a positive COVID-19 case.
The Roar, like Perth, have played just one Isuzu UTE A-League home game since the competition began on 19 November.
“Right now we feel for Perth Glory as a group, what they’re going through,” Moon said.
“It’s frustrating. We can’t seem to catch a break at the moment. We’ve had three difficult away matches under travel restrictions and only the one home game.
“We would have loved a home game in front of our fans in good conditions that suit us up here, but it wasn’t to be.
“But we brought the boys in over the weekend and worked them pretty hard, worked on a lot of things to improve moving forward.
“So it wasn’t wasted, it was a good weekend for us, we worked hard and now we’re looking forward to Wednesday’s game.”
FFA Cup Quarter Final
Sydney FC vs Brisbane Roar
Wednesday, 22 December 2021
Netstrata Jubilee Stadium
KO: 5:00pm (QLD)
