The short turnaround has made finalising the Jets squad this week a challenge.
Gary van Egmond has today announced an 18-man squad to take on Adelaide United this Friday.
Even though the team were unable to secure three-points against Brisbane Roar, van Egmond was happy with the team-s performance and is hoping they can bring the same mentality into Friday’s game.
“We were happy in regards to the performance, attitude and work ethic that we brought to the game last weekend but again we didn-t get any points out of it and the players were disappointed with that,” the coach said.
“We have to ensure with bring same attitude and mentality into our game against Adelaide.”
The short turnaround between games has made finalising his squad for this week a challenge.
“We have a few niggles and a couple of the boys have trained with the youth team and have not yet trained with us,” van Egmond added.
“Being a short week and the inclement weather makes our preparation even more difficult and we will have a look at training tomorrow and go from there.”
Michael Bridges has been named in this week-s squad but van Egmond is quick to state that he still has some work to do.
“There is still a way to go for Bridgey and he would be the first to admit that but we are seeing some positive signs on the training pitch and he just needs to keep on working,” he explained.
After getting through training yesterday, Matthew Nash is expected to replace Ben Kennedy in goals after he was ruled unfit to play this week.
Ben Kantarovski will miss this week-s game after being called into the Australian Under 23-s team to play Uzbekistan on Sunday for the AFC Asian Qualifiers.
Van Egmond admits he is looking at a few options to replace Kantarovski.
“Young Jacob Pepper is a player who is definitely on the up and he is someone we are looking at,” he said.
“Instead of playing three at the back we may play an extra defender and play four at the back.”
The Newcastle Jets Week 8 squad to play Adelaide is: 2. Taylor Regan, 4. Nikolai Topor-Stanley, 5. Tiago Calvano, 7. Kasey Wehrman, 8. Jeremy Brockie, 9. Michael Bridges, 10. Ruben Zadkovich, 11. Tarek Elrich, 12. Jobe Wheelhouse (c), 13. Sung-Hwan Byun, 14. Labinot Haliti, 17. James Virgili, 19. Matthew Nash (gk) 22. Ali Abbas, 23. Ryan Griffiths, 24. Francis Jeffers 25. Jacob Pepper 30. Jack Duncan (gk).
