While most are labelling Saturday’s #SydneyDerby as a chance for revenge, for Captain Alex Wilkinson it’s just another step in the road towards claiming the Hyundai A-League Premiership.
Set down as a goal at the start of the season, Wilkinson said the squad would be pushing for the title regardless of the current situation surrounding the game, saying the squad were more than motivated to perform.
“We’ve only lost two games this year and they just happen to be both against the Wanderers which is definitely not ideal,” Wilkinson said.
“One way to look at it is revenge, and the other way is a win gets us one step closer to the Premiership.
“That’s what we want to do at the moment, we just want to wrap that Premiership up as soon as possible and secure the trophy.
“For us we’ve got our internal goals and goals we set at the start of the season. One of them is to win the Premiership and we’re very close at the moment,” he continued.
“If we can get a win against the Wanderers then whatever happens next we’ll be that much closer to achieving one of our goals.
“You really enjoy playing in front of crowds and take it for granted. The derby games, these games are built around the atmosphere and passion from both sides, it’s going to be a little different playing behind closed doors.
“It is what it is, we’re doing it for a reason to keep us safe and healthy, we get on with it. We’ve got enough motivation within the squad to push us forward and get the right result on the weekend.”
Reflecting on the previous two encounters against the Wanderers, Wilkinson said there wasn’t a great deal to change performance wise, as the Sky Blues’ Captain heralded a ‘special’ season for the club.
“In the first two games we had a lot of possession in both games, it’s just a matter of making that possession effective in the final third,” he said.
“In both games we had chances, in the last game we could have created a little bit more, so in terms of doing things different it’s just being a little bit more clinical in the front third and also moving the ball a bit quicker, moving them around trying to create space.
“It’s just one of those times both times that the ball didn’t go in for us. We haven’t had too many games where we’ve been kept scoreless and hopefully that changes this weekend.
“It’s been unbelievable, over the last four seasons we’ve built a real culture of success within Sydney FC and that’s shown year on year,” he continued.
“This season has been pretty special, I think we’re still on track to beat the points record that we set a couple of years ago. We never thought that would be possible and this year we’ve got one less game.
“We want to do our best to finish things off properly, so far it’s been a great ride, we’ve got a great bunch of boys and we’re looking forward to finishing it off and looking back with a couple of trophies.”
It’s sure to be another battle at Bankwest Stadium on Saturday, tune in to Fox Sports 505 or stream on the My Football Live App to back your Sky Blues.
