Melbourne Victory coach Dave Edmondson is keen to continue winning ways this weekend away to Perth Glory, as the team look to build on a 2-0 win against Adelaide in Round 2.
The W-League outfit bounced back from a sobering 1-5 loss to defending champions Sydney FC in the opening round, as goals to Lisa De Vanna and Caitlin Friend extended their winning record against the Lady Reds.
Perth Glory represent a significant obstacle in Round 3 this coming Sunday, but Edmondson seemed confident of his side’s chances before training on Thursday evening.
“I’ve got [the team set up] in a way we want to play,” he said.
“We did that in patches against Sydney, we did that in bigger patches against Adelaide and we’re expecting improvement throughout the year.
“So we hope that in Perth this weekend there’s further improvement and we play more to the way we want to play for longer periods of the game.”
With Welsh midfielder Jessica Fishlock finally joining up with the team, the Victory coach is adamant that the fight for starting places will spur his players on to greater heights.
“That’s going to happen every week and it’s going to happen more and more as the season goes,” he said.
“As we get our full 20 players available, some are going to be left out and there’s no easy way around that.
“It’s not necessarily that they’re doing anything wrong or that they’re performing badly, it’s just either 15 other people are performing that little bit better or things suit us certain weeks.
“Both Laura [Spiranovic] and Tiff [Eliadis] were disappointed to be left out two weeks ago which I would expect and would hope for, and they’ve both worked hard to fight their way back in which is great but also gives me a tough decision each week.”
Edmondson went on to single out Kate Gill as a huge loss for Glory, as the Matildas co-captain continues to recover from fatigue, but hinted that he had a game plan in mind for Sunday.
“Gill is obviously a major factor for them,” he said.
“There’s a couple of areas to exploit against Perth but it’s not really to do with the fact they’ve got a weak player here or a weak player there.
“It’s just the way they play potentially suits the way that we play, so the way and the areas that they try and regain the ball we think that we can exploit a little bit with players that we’ve got on the pitch.”