Sunday’s clash involving Dwight Yorke’s Macarthur and Ruben Zadkovich’s Perth Glory promises to be a highly entertaining fixture, as a massive three points are on the line.
Glory come into this fixture full of confidence having beaten last season’s champions Western United at home, putting on an excellent performance at Macedonia Park.
On the other hand, the Bulls are without a doubt looking for a response as they went down to the Melbourne Victory following a narrow 1-0 loss at home.
Getting the three points will be absolutely vital for both sides, as the fight for a spot in the top six looks to be tighter than ever before.
So what’s the key for the Perth Glory in particular to get the win against Macarthur?
Well first of all, as Zadkovich pointed out in his press conference yesterday, maintaining discipline in the defensive phase will be absolutely critical.
Macarthur have some excellent attacking talent, with the likes of Ulises Dávila, Daniel Arzani and Daniel de Silva all set to feature for Dwight Yorke’s side.
Stopping the influence of Dávila in particular will be absolutely paramount for any potential success for the Glory.
He wasn’t as influential as usual against the Victory last weekend, but knowing his quality and threat in and around the box, denying the space for him and his teammates is essential.
An area that will be of concern to Yorke and his coaching staff would undoubtedly be how lucky they have been from a defensive perspective.
Despite having conceded only 11 goals, the xG against metric has suggested that they should’ve conceded a lot more, as they were projected to have conceded 15.5 goals, which is the most in the competition.
A lot of credit has to go down to their Polish custodian in goal Filip Kurto, who’s averaged 5.6 saves per game and prevented 4.5 goals, both of those areas have Kurto ranked as the best in the competition.
Unfortunately for the Glory, new signing Adam Taggart will not be available for selection until January so the responsibility falls to the existing forwards to improve their game.
Against Western United, Ryan Williams and Salim Khelifi had a lot of joy down the right-hand side, frequently putting good crosses into the box.
The problem, no one was there or in good enough positions to attack the ball and get on the end of those crosses.
Israeli forward Ben Azubel and experienced head David Williams both need to lift their game for me, as while they’ve offered some great qualities on and off the ball, their presence inside the box has been somewhat non-existent.
What’s going to be really important for the Glory will be ensuring that they first of all start the game with the same attacking intent that they showed against Western United and then maintaining it for longer than 70-75 minutes.
There was a concerning drop off in the last 10 minutes of the game, potentially due to player fatigue, that saw United get back into the game and that is something that Glory cannot afford to do against this Macarthur side.
In terms of an overall prediction for the game, I think the Glory can get a result albeit it will be difficult.
It will be expected for Yorke’s side to shoot out of the blocks and try to put on a good performance in front of their home fans, following last week’s disappointing result.
They, in particular, can’t afford to drop any more points as another loss would put Ruben Zadkovich’s men one point ahead of the Bulls.
If the Glory can get their counter-attacking game spot on, as well as maintaining their solid defensive structure, then there’s every chance we could possibly get a win.
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