Brisbane Roar Head Coach, Ben Cahn fronted the media ahead of Tuesday’s Isuzu UTE A-League Round 12 clash against Newcastle Jets at McDonald Jones Stadium.
The Roar boss discussed Tuesday’s match, injury updates, a busy January period, the transfer window and more.
MATCH PREVIEW: Newcastle Jets v Brisbane Roar
TEAM NEWS: Queensland X-Ray Injury Update
CALETTI: Roar not taking any backwards steps
On players returning from injury:
“We’ve got some healthy numbers coming back, Browney, Burkey, Nevsy Henry Hore all pending training today, should be close and in contention.
Florin is touch and go, he’ll train again today and we’ll assess that. If it’s not today there’s a chance that he’ll meet us for the Central Coast game and if not, we expect it won’t be very long after that.
We’ll take our squad that will be available for the game, we’ll make that decision post training today and then we’ll have a chance to review post Newcastle and have the flexibility for a few to meet us if ready for the Central Coast game.”
Dealing with a busy run of fixtures:
“Everyone’s good, it’s certainly not been a kind schedule to us and it doesn’t really let up now until after the Wellington game.
I think we’ve had a rough deal of it compared to some of the other teams and there’s minimal time to prepare. As a new coach coming in I would have valued some extra time on the training pitch between games, but it’s the way it is and there’s a lot of learning to be done in games. We just have to adjust and improve on the run.”
On bouncing back from defeat against Macarthur:
“We’ve been through the data and the analysis of the Macarthur game with a fine tooth comb and the result was disappointing for us and there were certainly parts of the game where we struggled but, there were lots of improvements in that game from the previous two.
It was our highest box entries of the season, we created a lot of chances we certainly looked in a more controlling position than we had been in the last couple of weeks, there were some good moments out of possession as well but the big thing for us is tightening up our structure and our distances and our individual actions so that we can reduce the opposition’s control and be a little bit more resilient and less easy to play through for larger periods of games.”
On the club’s forward options:
“Tommy Waddingham’s a player that we all believe in and he’s a big prospect for the football club. He’s young and it’s important that we keep fostering his development, he’s come back from an injury. He had the shoulder injury and missed a week of training and had a little illness as well so sometimes that can send a player backwards a bit but he’s still on the recovery path and in the next few weeks we’ll see him come back to his best.
Jonas has done really well, two goals in two games for a striker – especially coming off the bench is a really good way to impact the game he’s shown a lot of hunger as well out of possession and he certainly put himself in contention to start.”
On Keegan Jelacic send off:
“I think that was a player that’s come in and he’s probably had a frustrating six months in Europe and he was very eager to make an impact. I know how hungry he was to come on and lift the team and sometimes you can be a bit over enthusiastic and it’s a great lesson for him. He’s done his reflection and he’ll learn from that, we’re awaiting the suspension length, hopefully that comes through and he’s available sooner rather than later to come and show what he can do.”
January transfer business update:
“We’re still working on some progress and there’s scope to bring a player in. We’d like to do that but I’ve mentioned before that the mid-season transfer windows in the A-League it’s easy to make mistakes, it’s easy to sign someone with desperation and if we sign players they have to be able to be better than what we’ve got and have to be able to impact the team immediately and carry us through to the end of the season.
It’s not the intention to bring someone in who stands in the way of a young player’s development, so it has to be somebody that’s ready to come in and impact the team and we’re working hard on that if it happens that’s great, if not we won’t rush into the wrong signing.
We’ve got a short list of two or three players in each position and we’re quite focused on the positions that we need to recruit in and we’ll do what we can to get the right ones.”
MATCH DETAILS
Isuzu UTE A-League Men 2023/24 – Round 12: Newcastle Jets v Brisbane Roar
McDonald Jones Stadium, Newcastle
Tuesday, 22 January (6:00pm AEST KO)
