Sydney FC Head Coach Steve Corica said his squad will have to be wary of a wounded Newcastle Jets side, but wouldn’t change preparations ahead of the clash at McDonald Jones Stadium.
The Novocastrians are without a Head Coach following Ernie Merrick’s sacking, and Corica said that would throw a level of unknown into the Round 14 encounter, with structure and player changes a possibility.
“We prepare against Newcastle like they’re any other team,” Corica said.
“They’re without a coach at the moment so they’re a dangerous team in the situation they’re in, so we have to make sure we’re up for the game.
“They’ve got the W-League Coach Craig Deans coming in to fill in until they get a new coach.
“That’s always a danger, we don’t know what they’re going to do with the team, whether he changes them structurally or the personnel.
“We need to be a little bit flexible with that and maybe deal with it on the day, we’ll prepare as normal for what we expect and if we have to change, we’ll change on Friday night.”
The Sky Blues’ boss said he was hopeful or having some of his injured stars back and available for the clash, with Milos Ninkovic missing the win over Adelaide and Michael Zullo appearing off the bench.
“It took the players a little bit longer to recover [after Saturday] so we gave them some extra time to do that,” Corica said.
“They’re fully ready now and hopefully we’ve got Ninko and a couple of others back so it’s looking good for Friday.
“Ninko is pretty close and we’re hoping to have him back, he’ll train today [Thursday], we’ll see how he goes and then we’ll make a decision on him.”
Sydney FC take on the Newcastle Jets at McDonald Jones Stadium on Friday 10th January (kick off 7:30pm AEDT). Catch the live on Fox Sports 505, stream on the ‘My Football Live’ app or follow @SydneyFC on Twitter for live updates.
