Melbourne Victory attacker Robbie Kruse insisted there was more to come after his fine display against Perth Glory on Friday.
Making his first start since returning to the club, Kruse scored the only goal in a 1-0 win at AAMI Park as Victory celebrated Leigh Broxham’s 300th Hyundai A-League appearance for the club by securing three points.
Kruse has a goal and an assist in just 149 minutes of action this season and the 31-year-old – described as a “special player” by Victory head coach Marco Kurz – wants more.
“I’d probably say I’m around 70 per cent I think,” he said after the win over Perth.
“Normally, my fitness has been a real key to my career, I’ve been naturally quite fit, so I’m probably around 70 per cent I think now so I’ve got a bit to go.
“Obviously during the week I’m doing a lot of extra work to try and get my base up so I think it’ll take me another three or four games to hit peak fitness.
“In saying that, I’m happy with the way it went (against Perth) and hopefully once we get everyone at full fitness – Andrew (Nabbout) as well – we’ve got a lot of pace and I think we’ll scare a lot of teams, particularly with the way we can be on the counter-attack so it was a good platform to build on.”
Nabbout set up Kruse’s goal – his first for Victory since 2011 – against Perth, while Ola Toivonen and Elvis Kamsoba also caused problems.
Kruse believes Victory’s attack can be a major weapon as the season goes on.
“Ola’s an excellent target man for us, he’s got a great goal ratio here in Australia so he adds a lot to us, he’s a great target man and excellent in the box, in and around the box,” he said.
“With Andrew as well he’s excellent on the counter-attack and I think as we get fitter and more cohesion I think we’ll scare a lot of teams particularly if they’re trying to press and come further up the pitch.
“Perth defend with a high line, we knew that and I think we got in behind them numerous times so once we can build on this and get the connections going a bit more I think we’ll be much more dangerous going forward.
“I think hopefully we showed glimpses of that and even Elvis in the number 10 was really, really good so hopefully we can keep building on that and put in another win next week.”
Victory faces Western United at GMHBA Stadium on Sunday, December 8 before returning to AAMI Park to play Wellington Phoenix six days later.
