Ange Postecoglou wants his Melbourne Victory players to make attacking their biggest priority when the 2012/13 Hyundai A-League season begins next month.
Ange Postecoglou wants his Melbourne Victory players to make attacking their biggest priority when the 2012/13 Hyundai A-League season begins next month.
Victory went down 2-1 at home to Perth Glory in a friendly behind closed doors at AAMI Park on Wednesday, but no-one could fault the home side for effort throughout the 90 minutes.
Postecoglou fielded close to a full-strength line-up, with Socceroo Archie Thompson and New Zealand international Marco Rojas occupying the flanks, as South American duo Guilherme Finkler and Marcos Flores led the attack.
When quizzed on his preferred formation as the new A-League campaign approaches, Postecoglou shifted the focus instead to the attitude he wants to see from his talented squad.
“The systems and tactics are one thing, it’s about our intent,” he said.
“I guess we want to be a fairly attacking team. We’re setting up the team that way. We’ve got some really good quality ball players in our side who can beat people with a pass or a dribble and we want to be a side who really take the game to the opposition.
“How we set up, in terms of formation, we might tweak that from week to week but our intent is to be an attacking, aggressive side.”
Victory captain Adrian Leijer played the full match for the first time in pre-season, after previously enjoying a run out against Central Coast Mariners on Sunday.
“It was good for Ado (Leijer) to get 90 minutes today, that was his first in pre-season so at least that gives us some options that, come first round, we’ll have some decisions to make,” he said.
“He’s missed a lot of football, a lot of pre-season, he’s only really been back in full training the last 20-odd days.
“He played 30 minutes on Sunday … it was a short turnaround but I don’t think he was getting too extended … so hopefully it’ll be good for him.”
With key defender Leijer back in action, Victory’s starting line-up against Perth Glory appeared to be close to their strongest possible team.
But Postecoglou said he still has options to consider prior to the season opener against Melbourne Heart on October 5.
“We have a framework we want to work around in terms of the team and we’re getting pretty close,” he said.
“There’s still a couple spots within the starting 11. We’ve got to see how Adrian Leijer backs up and if he’s not right then that might affect a couple of spots within the team.”
Their last run-out will be an intra-club friendly on Sunday, and Postecoglou said the Victory fans in attendance can expect a full-blooded affair, as those players on the fringes are handed an opportunity to impress.
“We’ve got an intra-club game on Sunday, we’ll go hard in that and that’s on AAMI,” he said.
“It’ll give us another chance to play in here and push the guys to the maximum there.
“We’ll get all our fans out here too do we can create a bit of atmosphere and excitement going into the first round.”
