Glory Head Coach David Zdrilic is looking to make the most of home advantage as his side welcome Newcastle Jets to HBF Park on Saturday (kick-off at 6:45pm, tickets available HERE).
Click HERE to view his full media conference
Remarkably, the last five A-League meetings between Glory and the Jets have all ended with a 2-2 scoreline and the clubs also shared the honours in the two pre-season games they played out in Bunbury and Albany earlier this year, registering one win apiece.
Zdrilic is expecting a similarly tight tussle this weekend and is hoping that having the Glory Members and fans behind them will give his charges the edge.
“We haven’t played at home for over a month now, so we’re really looking forward to that, taking those steps forward that we showed against Western United and Adelaide and getting back on track in that regard,” he said.
“For us, every game is the same and Newcastle is another strong team.
“In some ways, they’re in a similar position to us.
“They haven’t got the results they’ve been wishing for and we played them a couple of times in pre-season and it was close in both games.
“We know each other well and recent results have been very tight between the two teams, so we’re expecting another one like that.
“We’re really happy to be back at home and we want to make sure that we show everyone that we have been making progress, taking the Victory game out and we want to take those next steps moving forward.”
Glory head into the game off the back of a 2-0 away defeat at Melbourne Victory and Zdrilic acknowledged that his side’s performance at AAMI Park was an underwhelming one.
“We expected a tough game against Melbourne Victory, so there was no surprise there,” he said.
“The quality that they have… and they’re very dominant at home.
“We had two good performances against Western United, even though we didn’t get the result and obviously against Adelaide we built on that.
“But against Victory, we weren’t then able to progress and even though we knew it was going to be a tough game, we just didn’t hold the ball enough.
“So from that point of view we weren’t happy, but we’re still positive about playing at home [this weekend].”
The Head Coach went on to confirm that new signing Tomi Mrcela is in line to make his second debut for the club having worn the famous purple on 30 occasions between 2018 and 2020.
Fellow-defender Anas Hamzaoui, however, will again miss out through injury, as will Trent Ostler, Nikola Mileusnic and Mustafa Amini.
The Jets, meanwhile, will head to WA looking for their first win since Round 2 when they toppled Macarthur FC at Campbelltown Stadium.
Ron Stanton’s side have drawn blanks in their last two outings against Auckland FC and Adelaide United and Eli Adams is their top scorer with two goals.
Their squad for Saturday could include two former Glory players in Callum Timmins and Aleks Susnjar, but a third, Dane Ingham, will miss the trip due to a chest injury.
The Jets have made 26 previous visits to HBF Park, winning just three times, with the most recent of those victories coming in December 2017.
Match Details
Isuzu UTE A-League 2024/25 Season Round 8
Perth Glory v Newcastle Jets
HBF Park
Saturday 14 December 2024
Kick-off: 6:45pm
In association with
#ONEGlory
