Perth Glory duo Travis Dodd and Josh Risdon are confident that a positive week on the training ground has primed the men in purple to topple ladder leaders Central Coast Mariners on Saturday night.
Perth Glory duo Travis Dodd and Josh Risdon are confident that a positive week on the training ground has primed the men in purple to topple ladder leaders Central Coast Mariners on Saturday night.
The nib Stadium clash will of course mark the first game in charge for the club’s new coaching team of Alistair Edwards and Gareth Naven and Dodd believes the duo’s arrival has already galvanised the playing group.
“With Alistair and Gareth coming in,” he said, “that-s motivation for the players to try and prove themselves to the coach and prove to ourselves that we can still play good football.
“Everybody-s on their toes and playing for a spot in the eleven again.
“It-s been a really sharp week in training and everyone-s been really focused, so hopefully there-ll be an improvement this weekend.
“The boys are confident and the coaching staff are confident that we can go out there and play well.”
Those sentiments were echoed by Risdon who is very familiar with Naven’s methods having worked extensively under the club’s new assistant coach during his time in Glory’s youth team set-up.
“We-ve been working really hard in training,” he said.
“Alistair’s got a different way that he wants to play and he-s been drilling that into us this week.
“He wants us to keep the ball a bit more and add a bit more movement off the ball as well and there-s a lot more tactical stuff involved that he-s been trying to get into our brains.
“Everyone knows their jobs now and hopefully we can turn it around, starting this weekend.”
Dodd, who is set to make his 181st Hyundai A-League appearance on Saturday, then shed some more light upon what the nib Stadium faithful can expect to see from their side under the new coaching regime.
“We’ve really worked on our structure and our organisation going forward,” he said.
“We need to make sure that our movement off the ball is right and get the right players into the right attacking areas.
“For me personally, that might be about not tracking back every time but using my pace and ability to get forward and attack more and for players like Liam (Miller) to be used in a more attacking role to help influence the play and create opportunities for Shane (Smeltz).”
And while conscious of the threat posed by the men from Gosford who have lost just twice all season, the former Adelaide United man believes that Glory are well-capable of snagging a win that would thrust them right back into finals contention.
“The Mariners are a stand-out team in the competition who are consistently up in the top two,” he said, “and Graham Arnold has done a great job with the side.
“Their organisation defensively and their ability to counter-attack are definitely their main assets and we-ve worked on how we-re going to close that down.
“We need to be focused as a team and make sure that everyone is doing their task to achieve that.
“We need to have a balance and not have seven or eight men going forward leaving them gaps to exploit in behind and we-ve worked on trying to have that cover in midfield to stop those counter attacks.
“If we can individually complete our tasks and complete the team tasks at the same time, that-s what is going to win us games and get us into the top six .”
