Melbourne City captain Patrick Kisnorbo is not buying into the expectation placed on Melbourne City to down an injury and suspension ridden Sydney FC on Saturday night.
Matt Simon (internal bleeding) and Alex Brosque (hamstring) are in serious doubt to step onto AAMI Park this weekend. Jacques Faty was also sent off last week in their 1-1 draw to Melbourne Victory.
It puts a big dent into the Sky Blues’ season, as they are only just sitting in a finals position at sixth on 30 points, two in front of Perth Glory who sit seventh.
Kisnorbo stated this morning they were only focusing on themselves.
“Maybe you’re saying that (we should win), but we’re not. At the end of the day it’s 11 vs 11, it doesn’t matter who’s there,” Kisnorbo said.
“We still have to beat the opposition, it doesn’t matter who’s playing and who isn’t.
“We’ll give them the respect they deserve, come the end of it we want to be on top and we want to win. We need to beat the opposition who is in front of us.”
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The game on Saturday night will be played for the Blue Ribbon Cup, aiming to honour Police Officers who have died while on the job.
City fell 2-1 away to Wellington Phoenix last Friday night. Ironically, van’t Schip’s side looked like the better team, but were beaten on the day due to slackness.
With the loss they put their chances of finishing first in serious jeopardy, sitting fourth on 32 points. Kisnorbo admitted they fell asleep for a quick period which ultimately cost them a point or three.
“I don’t think there was any issue, two lapses of concentration in 10 minutes and we got punished,” he said.
“It doesn’t matter who you play against or where they are in the league, at the end of the day they’re real quality and they can punish you at any time.
“We had brain fades for a brief interval which cost us the game, for 80 minutes we controlled the game.
“It shows which ever league you play in, you can’t afford to do that. We know that, we’ve learnt from it, we’ve reviewed it and we’re working on it this week to bring into Saturdays game.”
Kisnorbo also conceded the defending was a big problem, City have let in a cluster of goals this season, but on the contrary have scored many.
“Statistics show our defensive structure hasn’t been the best this year,” he said.
“It’s something we can rectify, it’s a problem, but it’s the little things which are the difference.
“If we can get on top of them come this week, hopefully it puts us in stead for the following games to come.”
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