Melbourne Victory will be preparing for their top of the table clash against the Western Sydney Wanderers without captain Carl Valeri on Saturday night who is still bogged down by a virus.
Speaking to the media following the Victory’s final session on Friday before leaving for Sydney, senior coach Kevin Muscat was excited for what promises to be one of the biggest matches of the season so far while lamenting the absence of his skipper.
“Yeah I’m looking forward to it (the game against Western Sydney), it’s going to be quite a contrasting game of football from last week (loss against Wellington) but we have come back and licked our wounds and now were looking forward to going across there and putting on a good show,” Muscat said.
“Carl was diagnosed with a virus about 10 days ago and that’s now developed into some sort of condition which has affected his balance so his undergone quite a bit of testing over the last few days but at this point in time it’s a matter we take very seriously.”
With the illness coming at such an important stage of the season, naturally question marks have been raised about the headspace of the skipper who scored one of the goals of the season at Parramatta Stadium when these two sides met there last season.
Muscat was adamant that any concerns over his ability to return to the field will come second to the player’s wellbeing which is of the utmost importance to the club.
“Naturally it’s (Valeri’s headspace) not great at the moment but first and foremost his wellbeing is paramount and like I said we are taking the matter very seriously.”
One positive was the progress of returning veteran Archie Thompson, who completed the full training session following a minor scare on Tuesday and could be in line for a potential return for the Melbourne Derby next weekend.
Muscat was adamant that any news of a recurrence of his injury following Tuesday’s session was inaccurate with the Victory coach pleased with Thompson’s progress over the past few weeks.
“He finished the session yesterday and he didn’t limp off with injury (on Tuesday) he simply didn’t finish the session but he wasn’t injured.”
“Obviously we will need to get through another week of training next week but at this stage I wouldn’t rule him out.”
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