Ahead of today’s Australia Day clash against Melbourne Victory, Sydney FC Head Coach Graham Arnold has labelled the Big Blue as the biggest game on the Hyundai A-League fixture list.
With 21 goals split between the two sides in their previous five encounters, Arnold said he’s expecting another entertaining affair tonight while remaining confident the Sky Blues can take the points in a fixture they previously won 5-0.
“I think we both go at each other, there’s no bigger and better competitive game than the Big Blue,” he said.
“Last year we had two 3-3 draws against them, great games, and the 0-0 draw was a fantastic 0-0 that could have been anything and this year the first game was 4-2.
“I felt that evening we were just as good if not better than them, they scored two goals late and before that we hit the post and cross bar. We dominated big periods of that game and we’ve got to go down with that same attitude and mentality and belief.
“We have a belief in this squad that we’re going in the right direction and we’ve got the quality players to do damage against Melbourne Victory.
“We’ve got to make sure that we go down there with the same type of mentality that we had last week in the derby and do as good a job as we did last week.”
With left back Alex Gersbach returning to training yesterday from Olyroos duty, Arnold moved to quell rumours of an impending transfer for the 18 year old defender.
“There’s speculation all the time,” Arnold said.
“Obviously Alex is a kid that’s got ambition, he doesn’t hide that, he often says that overseas is where he wants to go, but we haven’t had anything concrete, there’s nothing there in writing, there’s no firm offers.
“The most important thing is that we’re trying to keep him, we want him to stay at Sydney. I believe he needs another year in the A-League, other people, probably the agents don’t, but what I have at heart is the good for the kid and his career.
“For me if he does leave it’s got to be a place where he’s going to play, and play regularly and not sit and watch, otherwise if he does that he’ll be back in Australia very quickly.”
Sydney FC take on Melbourne Victory tonight in our traditional Australia Day clash. Catch the game live on Fox Sports 4, listen live on ABC Grandstand or follow @SydneyFC on Twitter for updates.
