Melbourne City can potentially claim a position in the A-League top two after this round, should they dispose of Brisbane Roar on Friday night.
Only three points separate first and fourth, Roar and Western Sydney share 41 points in the top two with City sitting fourth on 38.
City defender Connor Chapman picked up a knee injury in mid-December and was on the bench in their 1-0 win against Adelaide United away last week, however, he did not play.
The 21-year-old is a good chance to take field on Friday and conceded he thought he would be out for longer.
“I feel good, I think 12 weeks is a long time to be out and the plan was to come back for my first game this week and we’re probably two weeks ahead looking at that,” Chapman said.
“We’ve got a good bill of health, we only have one person out injured which is something we’ve never had before.
“Credit to everyone at the club and going into finals I think we need competition for all the spots.”
“I do training sessions to replicate 90 minute games, that’s all I can do and at the end of the day it comes down to playing games, it’s the only way you can get match fitness.”
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With the standings being so close Chapman believes they are still within a shout to win the league and play in next year’s ACL.
“If we have any serious thoughts of making the top two or even coming first, we need to beat the top team. If we do that we can catch up on points and it will come down to the last three games,” he said.
“We’re aiming to finish in the top two this year and we’re so close to it.
“If we work hard on Friday we’ll be closer, in the A-League every team beats each other and anything can happen in the last few weeks.”
City midfielder Jacob Melling was aware of Roar’s form and was also thinking of a Champion’s League berth.
“The way Brisbane played against Victory, their structure looked good, John Aloisi is getting them to play how he wants them to, more so near the end of the season and we’ve worked on how we can break them down,” Melling said.
“I’d love to play champions league football here next season, It’s right in front of us now and it’s up to the boys to make sure we can get into a top two position.”
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