After coming off the back of a loss in his first home match, Ufuk Talay is priming his squad for the task of Perth Glory this Saturday night at Allianz Stadium.
His Sky Blues announced themselves to the competition with a thrilling 5-1 victory over Adelaide United but crashed back down to Earth following a Derby defeat last weekend.
Having experienced the lows of a loss at Allianz, he is ready to turn those fortunes around and believes he has something building at Sky Park.
“I tried to pick them up after the game and keep their heads up.
“I spoke with the boys that sometimes you can play out of your skin and for whatever reason, lose games, so as long as they focus on the performance and how we want to play and how we want to do things, I’m sure eight out of ten times we will win,” Talay added.
“We want to play a high pressing game and try to dominate them without the ball but there is moments when we need to improve and players understand their role more.
“It’s coming. It’s not going to happen overnight. but we’re working towards something and I think we are definitely building.”
One common theme of training under the new boss Ufuk Talay is the intensity and speed at which he wants to play and with the high pressing game, it requires fitness.
“We are working with the boys to be able to maintain that high intensity during the game with the training we are doing.
“There’s moments where we can be a lot better with our players in certain areas to score goals and that is something that we are going to continue to work on,” he added.
“Our substitutions are not made because a player is having a good game or a bad game, it is because we want to play a high intensity game and want players to go flat out.
“One thing we do know is that when we press teams we are going to expect more long balls so we are working on how we deal with them and also the second phase too.
“It’s building. You can see that there’s certain elements to it and the intent is there and I think if we start to fine tune things, we are only going to get better,” Talay said.
Unfortunately for this game, the Sky Blues will be without their Academy star Jaiden Kucharski who matched his first start in the league with a brace against Adelaide but failed to convert against the Wanderers.
“He [Kucharski] has a tight hamstring so we aren’t risking him for this weekend but he is a valuable player for us in the way we want to play.
“But these injuries also open up opportunities for other players,” the Head Coach said.
“We need to expose young players to the big moments. They need to play more often in those matches so that they can get used to it and be better at it.
“We have a number of experienced senior players but also some really talented youngsters coming through.”
On Saturday night, Talay will come up against Hall of Famer and former Women’s Head Coach Alen Stajcic.
“This is a great opportunity [to get some points on the board].
“I don’t know what the story has been previously about our stadium but we need to turn it into a fortress and win every home game.
“Teams need to fear coming to play us there,” he concluded.
Catch Ufuk Talay and the rest of the Sydney FC squad at Allianz Stadium this Saturday.
Match Details
Sydney FC v Perth Glory
Isuzu UTE A-League Round Six
Saturday 2nd December 2023
Allianz Stadium, Sydney, NSW
Kick Off: 7:45pm AEDT
Gates Open: 6:45pm AEDT
Broadcast Live: Paramount+ & 10Bold
Tickets: Click Here
