Melbourne City attacking-midfielder Nick Fitzgerald admits suspended striker Harry Novillo is a big loss, but will not vastly weaken the team.
City will appeal the Martinique’s ban, but he will miss the A-League Elimination Final against Perth Glory on Sunday. The incident involved Novillo engaging in violent conduct during the melee which broke out at halftime in their 2-0 loss to Adelaide United last Friday night.
“Novillo brings that different dimension, he’s very hard to defend. You don’t really know what he’s going to bring,” Fitzgerald said.
“He’s quality, we’re not denying that, but we have players who can come in and do their job. We saw (Marc) Marino come off the bench and score against Perth three weeks ago.
“It’s a finals game, a different type of game, it’s not a normal with points on the line. There’s a lot on the line, so we know we have to go out there, no matter who goes out there we have to be ready for the game.”
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City will go into the sudden death game with poor momentum, having squandered a golden opportunity to win the Premiership needing maximum points with two weeks to go, however, losing both games consecutively to Glory (3-2) and Adelaide United (2-0).
Perth shocked many after their poor start to the season, winning five games in a row before a shock 4-0 shellacking to Sydney FC last weekend.
Fitzgerald said City had to be cautious of their in-form striker Andy Keogh, who has scored 10 goals after his comeback in January.
“I think personally, everyone thought they were that kind of team, it just took them a while to find the form and with Perth travelling every second week would be hard for them. It’s a tough place to go to, so I imagine Perth travelling would be difficult for them,” he said.
“You can tell their foreign players are starting to click together and we’re going to have to be wary of that as well because Keogh’s in great form and Castro adds another dimension to the team which they definitely suffered from last week.”
City have proved to be the leagues entertainers this season, much to the fact they hit the net and concede plenty in their games.
However, right-back Ivan Franjic said he expects a lower scoring affair in the finals.
“It’s weird because going into the finals everyone sees our goals for and it’s very high, but finals football it’s usually only a goal which separates the two teams,” Franjic said.
“Everyone takes a cautious approach, it will be good for a neutral if there’s a lot of goals. As a defender I want to keep it nil at the back and hopefully I’ll take a 1-0 win.
“I think the battle between the two teams, no one wants to make a mistake. That first mistake could be costly, it is in a different mindset because it’s another game, that’s how you approach it. It’s interesting because you expect a high scoring match, it doesn’t always happen in finals football.”
City have struggled to make finals in the past, despite making the series in their second season they came up against the Glory in 2011-12 season and lost 3-0 away.
Franjic, however, is looking to break records at City.
“It is what it is, it’s better to play them at home in front of our fans and I think is the clubs first home final. It’s good even though we don’t have the best record against them,” he said.
“When things don’t go right you look at the effort, if everyone’s putting in the effort there’s no reason why we can’t be successful and we’re going to give it everything we can, if we do that on Sunday we’ll win.
“We back our own ability, we said it from the start, we’re here to win and nothing’s changed.”
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