Soccer

Depleted Glory Rush Back Srhoj

Friday 5th February 2010

Author: Chris Correia

Photographer: PSPWA / Matt Greenfield

Perth Glory coach Dave Mitchell has rushed injured midfielder Wayne Srhoj into the starting eleven for this weekend’s crunch match against Sydney FC on Sunday.
 
The Glory sit fourth on the A-League table and need to finish in that position to secure a home final with just two matches remaining in the home-and-away season.
 
Injury has taken its toll on the Glory, with five stars unavailable for the road trip to the east coast, including Socceroos Jacob Burns and Mile Sterjovski.
 
Goalkeeper Tando Velaphi, Adriano Pellegrino and Victor Sikora will also be missing against the Sky Blues, but Mitchell hopes to have his troops back as soon as possible.
 
“Well hopefully the boys that are out will be back for finals,” he said.
 
“That’s the precaution we’re taking now, you know, the boys that come in will give me a headache if they perform…”
 
Mitchell added that captain Burns may be in doubt for finals action after playing his last match less than fit.
 
“Jake (Jacob Burns) is one that we’re not sure about….he might be a bit longer than the others…,” he said.
 
“I think the thing with Jake is that he had a problem the week prior to the last game he had, and he played through it and played probably when he shouldn’t have played.
 
“He just wanted to be out there and help the team and that probably caused the injury to be a little worse…”
 
In some good news for Perth, Mitchell confirmed that Wayne Srhoj would be rushed back to the starting line-up after missing over a month of football.
 
The Perth boss would have preferred to give Srhoj more time in the National Youth League with his comeback from a knee problem, but the need for a quality midfielder has seen the veteran brought back to the seniors earlier than expected.
 
“It’s unfortunate we’ve missed Wayne for three, four, five weeks it was,” he said.
 
“He’s probably coming back a little premature than we probably would have liked, he’s not played too many Youth games and you’d like to have one or two of them under your belt first.
 
“But it’s the situation that we need him to play, yeah he’s a good player and we look forward to having him back in the side.”
 
The Glory will take on Sydney FC at Parramatta Stadium on Sunday with kick-off at 2pm Perth time.