Melbourne Heart FC Head Coach John van ‘t Schip believes his side has moved on since its last outing against the league leading Brisbane Roar in September.
Melbourne Heart FC Head Coach John van ‘t Schip believes his side has moved on since its last outing against the league leading Brisbane Roar in September.
Since suffering defeat at the hands of the Roar at Suncorp Stadium, Heart has embarked on six-match unbeaten run, including the historic derby triumph over cross town rivals Victory.
Van ‘t Schip says his side has come a long way in the period since the two side-s last encounter, revealing the squad has undergone a gradual, but sustained evolution.
“Everybody knows that losing is not nice, and losing four nil of course is not good at all, so we had a good talk, and maybe the luck we had two weeks of preparation,” he said.
“First I thought it would be better to play after a week, but maybe after all, when they postponed the game another week and we had to wait, we had two weeks we could train very well. We had two or three changes in the team and they did very well in the game against Victory too.
“With that in mind and the games coming up, we kept on going and we grew as a squad. We have a lot of players now who can play and know now what we ask from them. They are not less than the players we had before, they are doing very well. It-s only giving us more choice to choose from.”
Emerging from a recent three-leg road trip with seven points from a possible nine, Heart is well placed to continue its march up the table this weekend, but Brisbane are sure to present a genuine challenge.
While van ‘t Schip doesn-t feel the upcoming encounter will be a definitive test for the side, he concedes the game will provide a chance for Heart to assess its recent progress.
“It-s another game and a good chance to see how far we are indeed,” he said.
“But we have I think if you look back at the game, how we played there (in Brisbane) and how we played in the meantime, we-ve really made little steps, which together are a big step over the last few games that we-ve played.
“Now we get to see on Sunday how we can play against the team which at this moment is playing the best football in the league.”
Match Details
Melbourne Heart FC Vs Brisbane Roar
Sunday 14 November
AAMI Park, Melbourne
Kick-off: 5pm
To purchase tickets, click click here.
