Brisbane Roar Head Coach Ange Postecoglou sees no reason to stray from the away match philosophy that secured his side so many important results last year
Brisbane Roar Head Coach Ange Postecoglou sees no reason to stray from the away match philosophy that secured his side so many important results last year and will use the same approach in the Hyundai A-League 2011/12 season, starting tomorrow night against Sydney FC.
Brisbane opened the season with three points following a round one victory over Grand Final foes Central Coast Mariners and will be looking to notch up their first away win of the campaign against the Sky Blues at the Sydney Football Stadium.
Last year-s form saw the Roar collect 30 from a possible 45 points on the road and Postecoglou was confident the same approach would reap similar rewards this season.
“I guess that was the key to our season last year, we didn-t change our mentality going away from home,” Postecoglou said.
“Sometimes, you can go into a defensive mindset when you play away from home and our thinking last year was that we-d go into every game trying to win it.
“There-s no point settling for a draw or trying to minimise any risk at an opposition-s ground.
“That was our attitude last year and that-s certainly our attitude again this year”.
Brisbane have only beaten Sydney once away from home – the 1-0 win in December last year – and Roar skipper Matt Smith said the side were keen to continue their new-found form at the stadium.
“One of the good things about last year was that it didn-t matter whether we played home or away, we still had the same philosophy about the way we play football,” he said.
“I think that was one of the keys to our success last year and that will be no different this year.
“Obviously, now we-ve got the challenge of going back to back and something we are highly focused on”.
Brisbane are likely to field the same starting eleven that beat the Mariners in last weekend-s entertaining encounter with quick-footed winger Henrique left out but not far off re-joining the match day squad, according to Postecoglou.
“We were pretty happy with the way things went last week and Henrique was close but he hadn-t had a full week of training,” he said.
“It-s a long season and there-s no point in unnecessarily rushing him in, we were pretty happy with everything last week so we-ll probably go in with the same team”.
Sydney FC takes on Brisbane Roar at the Sydney Football Stadium on Saturday (15 October 2011). Kick off is at 7.45pm.
