It has been a long three months but finally Warren Joyce and his side will hit AAMI Park for the first time in the A-League on Friday night and the Head Coach says his side is raring to go.
The pre-season was Joyce’s first with the Club and the Englishman has found the experience ‘different’ to that of European leagues but says come Friday night, he’s confident his side has prepared enough for their first priority, three points against Brisbane.
“Obviously we’re looking forward to it, this has been a big pre-season,” Joyce said.
“You just want to win every game but we need to concentrate on tomorrow night first. We’ll aim to win tomorrow night and then we aim to the next game and that’s how it will be all season”
“It’s been kind of frustrating because some lads have been all the way through [pre-season] and some players have come part way through or at the end of it, I expect a lot of coaches in the league have the same frustrations and not have the squad to work with.”
Friday’s match will be the first for Joyce and a number of his recruits at AAMI Park and the familiarisation session on Tuesday allowed the Englishman to get a real feel of the stadium.
“It was good to get down to the stadium this week, some of the players haven’t been done there before and I have not been down there on the grass myself so it was good to have a training game down there and experience it,” he said.
“Obviously it’s different again with your home fans being there so I think everyone is looking forward to the game.”
Joyce kept his cards close to his chest about squad selection for the clash but confirmed new signing Ross McCormack will make his starting debut for the Club after joining this week on loan from Aston Villa.
“Yeah the clearance is through now so he will start”
“I’m not going to give you the rest of the team because you could working for Brisbane Roar but it is similar to the team that has been in the last couple games, you know we have had a couple of clean sheets and a couple of wins so it’s not a million miles away from the setup we have had in the last two games”
“We played West Sydney and we have played Adelaide last week as well so it’s a similar sort of team we put out against them.”
City take on the Roar this Friday night at AAMI Park, kick-off 7.50pm. Click here to get your tickets for the match or click here to sign up as a Melbourne City member!
