The Newcastle Jets will return to familiar territory at McDonald Jones Stadium this weekend, off the back of a 5 – 1 result against the Central Coast Mariners in Round One.
The Jets will play host to Perth Glory, who will endure their second trip across the Nullarbor in a fortnight, hungry for a result after a last-start loss to the Western Sydney Wanderers.
The visitors have added two injury replacement players to their squad in Mitch Mallia and Jeremy Walker following the loss of Daniel Stynes, Joel Chianese and Marc Warren to long-term injuries.
Despite the difficult start to their Hyundai A-League campaign, Ernie Merrick is expecting attacking football from Ken Lowe’s men.
“Perth are always a very tough team to play against and Ken has them well structured and organised,” said Merrick.
“They’ll play an aggressive brand of football with Castro, Taggart and Keogh all dangerous in front of goal and they’ve recruited will in midfield with Xavi Torress and Andreu Guerao.
“It’s going to be a great spectacle for the fans and will offer similar qualities to our clash with the Mariners – open, end-to-end football.”
A bumper crowd is expected at McDonald Jones Stadium for the match, with well in excess of 6,500 tickets already given away as part of a club promotion.
Merrick said there was no intention to move away from the attacking approach that fuelled his side’s standout performance.
“I just want to see more of what we saw last week – front foot, attacking football from a talented bunch of players,” added Merrick.
“We’ve got 26 enjoyable rounds ahead and we’ll be continuing with an attacking mindset – we can’t promise five goals each week – but we can promise we’ll be playing every game to win.”
Sunday, 15 October 2017
Newcastle Jets v Perth Glory
McDonald Jones Stadium
Kick-Off: 5pm (Local); 5:00pm (AEDT)
Referee: Shaun Evans
TV Broadcast: Live coverage on FOX SPORTS 501 from 4:30pm (AEDT) and Sky Sport 1 (New Zealand)
Radio Broadcast: myfootballnation.com (6PR & 2SM Super Radio), 1233 ABC Newcastle, ABC Radio Perth, ABC Radio WA, Grandstand Digital, Online & via the ABC Listen App – A-league Live.
Join the conversation on Twitter using the hash-tag #NEWvPER
Newcastle Jets Squad: 1.Jack DUNCAN (gk), 3.Jason HOFFMAN, 4.Nigel BOOGAARD (c), 5.Ben KANTAROVSKI, 6.Steven UGARKOVIC, 7.Dimitri PETRATOS, 8.Ronald VARGAS, 9.Roy O’DONOVAN, 10.Wayne BROWN, 13.Ivan VUJICA, 15.Andrew NABBOUT, 16.Nick COWBURN, 17.Daniel GEORGIEVSKI, 19.Kosta PETRATOS, 20.Glen MOSS (gk), 22.Lachlan JACKSON, 24.Joe CHAMPNESS, 44.Nikolai TOPOR-STANLEY
**two to be omitted**
Ins: 3.Jason HOFFMAN (return from injury), 19.Kosta PETRATOS (promoted)
Outs: nil
Unavailable: nil
