Melbourne City FC Head Coach John van’t Schip has hinted that international marquee Robert Koren could play a part in Saturday’s Melbourne Derby, saying the Slovenian is a chance to make his Hyundai A-League debut.
Van’t Schip has been without his marquee man for 11 weeks and the Head Coach is looking forward to Koren playing his part.
“Robi Koren will be part of the squad,” van’t Schip said.
“He’s come back from 11 weeks not playing so he is going to be involved,
“If he’s going to be playing from the start or coming in, we’ll have to see tomorrow. He can’t play 90 minuets so we’ll have to see what’s the best for him,
“We have to build him up now over the coming weeks to make sure in the second part of the league he can play 90 minutes week in, week out.”
The Head Coach was wary of the last result between the teams, saying his side “gave it away” in the second half, but van’t Schip made it clear that his team has matured since that match and will be prepared for Saturday.
“This is going to be again a different game, we have to learn from the first game and approach it in a different way,” van’t Schip said.
“We know that they are good team. They are scoring a lot of goals but they are also conceding goals so we have analysed them and we know that we will have chances against them.”
The loss of Damien Duff for Saturday night’s encounter will be a big blow for van’t Schip’s side, but with the competition for starting positions at an all time high, the Dutchman showed last match that his new attitude to the side has paid dividends.
“There was a different approach after the Wellington game,” van’t Schip said.
“We didn’t get the results we expected so it was time to see what we could do differently with some players,
“If the results are not going the way that you think they should go and then other players deserve a chance and that’s what we did,
“You have to earn the right to play and the expectations are higher and for that, the approach of playing is also different.”
