Any idea of the team that will be sent out? Or for that matter, how good are Inglewood?

Nothing official yet (I did ask Perth Glory the question though) but I have a feeling it will be a mixture of youth and trailists and first team players. The problem is that Perth don't any other scheduled friendlies with WA State League opposition so I'd say most people will play ...

Jelic (visa problems), Sikora (recovering from knee injury), Todd (still in UK), Burns and Sterjovski (Socceroos) will definitely not be playing...

i can imagine that pellegrino, harnwell, shroj, dadi, sekulovski, coyne, bulloch ... maybe should all get a run ... they are the only players i can think of that are injury free and here available to play

Inglewood are a mid-table side currently going through a rebuilding phase (some will tell you that's been going on forever, rofl). Currently a few wins above the drop zone, but one win from fourth- it's pretty tight through the middle of the table at the moment. Used to be coached by Bobby Despotovski, unsure who's there at the moment after their last coach got the boot. That said, they're match fit and in the middle of their season and the Glory are not.

Glory will be without Jelic, Todd, Sterj, Burns, Downey, Velaphi, Sikora as a minimum.

Expect to see Dadi get a small period of time on the pitch as he eases into pre-season, and probably Skorich/Jukic up front. Apparently Jukic has been training up a storm so far so it'd be nice to see him keep that form up in a competitive game. Vrteski to be in goals.

Story from the West:

Perth Glory will kick off their preseason match program low on numbers but with high spirits when they take on WA Premier League club Inglewood United at Clipsal Stadium in Inglewood tonight.

There will be none of the big names signed during the off-season. Andy Todd, Jacob Burns, Mile Sterjovski and Branko Jelic are yet to join the squad. And several players have been ruled out through injury.

Former Ajax midfielder Victor Sikora is sidelined after having knee surgery, Jimmy Downey has an ankle injury and Scott Neville is recovering from a groin problem.

But assistant coach Kenny Lowe, who will take charge in the absence of boss David Mitchell, who is in Melbourne, said the absence of firstteamers had paved the way for young players to show their qualities.

“We will be heavily reliant on young players and we have to be careful we don’t overload them,” Lowe said.

“But there’s a good vibe about the place. It’s very well organised, players seem happy and there’s a lot of quality to come in.”

French striker Eugene Dadi, who was allowed to join pre-season late after a loan spell at Swiss League club FC Vaduz, is expected to play some part in tonight’s match. With Tando Velaphi nursing a hamstring injury, Aleks Vrteski will play in goal.

Proceeds from the match, which kicks off at the Hamer Parade ground at 7pm, will go to the Starlight Foundation.

Victory jeers no bother to Perth recruit Sterjovski - from the west


While Perth Glory striker Mile Sterjovski prepares to make yet another appearance for Australia he has half an eye on his impending arrival in WA.

Sterjovski will link up with his new teammates in Perth next week having signed a three-year marque deal to join the A-League outfit from English side Derby County.

And while focused on securing top place in their World Cup qualifying group for Australia with a result against Japan at the MCG tomorrow night, Sterjovski took some time out this afternoon to discuss his future at club level.

“I spent nine years in Europe and I wasn’t playing enough football at Derby County,” Sterjovski said of his move.

“I’ve always looked at coming back and coming back at a good age – it was a good opportunity to come to a great club.”

Speaking in front of predominantly Melbourne Victory-supporting crowd at the city’s Federation Square, Sterjovski attracted some friendly banter when announcing his intentions to return Glory to the top of Australia’s club football tree.

“I know Perth have been underachieving in the past few years but I think it’s time that they got back up to the top where they belong,” he said.

“I think we’ve put a good squad together and it’s going to take a bit of time to gel, but our goal is to finish as high as possible and to definitely make the finals. We’ll be very competitive.”

Sterjovski, who has been earmarked for a central striking role by Perth coach Dave Mitchell, will join fellow Socceroo Jacob Burns at the WA club this season.

Both players featured in Mitchell’s squads at Parramatta Power and Sydney United in the old National Soccer League.

Sterjovski has played 40 times for Australia.

lol ... i think we are all starting to love sterjovski very much ... wat a champ

From the PGFC website:

Starting line-up: Aleks Vrteski (gk), Jamie Coyne, Jamie Harnwell, Brent Griffiths, Naum Sekulovski, Adriano Pellegrino, Wayne Srhoj, Howard Fondyke, Scott Bulloch, Eugene Dadi, Andrija Jukic

Substitutes: Alex Pearson (gk) (NYL), Cameron Edwards (NYL), Milljon Butshiire (NYL), Ryan Pearson (NYL), Sam Mitchinson (NTC), Adam Taggart (NTC), Todd Howarth (Perth SC)

Dave are you going tonight?

Ja...

my lord was it cold, glory won 1-0 if you havent heard

Ahh Sausage it wasn't too bad tonight ...

Chilly but bearable.

Scratchy, but you'll take a 1-0 win when half your team is subbed off and you've no match fitness whatsoever. Pele, Jukic very impressive.

Yeh it was a little scratchy in parts but Perth pretty much dominated the game. I agree Pele and Jukic were very very very impressive. His goal was pretty good aswell.

Edited by FP General: 16/6/2009 11:50:17 PM

pelle ran and ran. im sure the new signings have motivated him to take his game to another level this season.

Good start to the preseason - thought the team passed very well considering how early it is. Pele was his usual busy, muscly self and Jukic was good on the ball but very good at jinking and making space for himself when under pressure. I think it was Todd Howarth playing LB in the second half and he didn't do a bad job. One to keep looking at.

Bloody cold though! I came straight from a gym circuit class and basically froze in my own sweat! Ewwww...

Hmmmm.
interesting.
great start though to the pre season.
and good to see it was a younger bloke who scored.

hmm i thought it would be a close scoring game ... good to see glory held good possession and passed it round well, good to hear and jukic and pellegrino also being standouts.

Good job with the "tweeting" FP. It was nice to follow along.

BTW, according to the West, Srhoj came off because he popped his shoulder.

yer he went straight down to the change rooms. it wasnt hanging out but he was holding it pretty hard. none of the coaching staff seemed to worried.

Yeah, I was more worried about Vrteski. Looked like he did something to his thigh; hopefully nothing too bad.

Same old Gory, crippled bastards :D

"none of the coaching staff seemed to worried"

.... 'it's alrite lad we got burns and sterjovski comin in, we'll work on shroj in a week or so'

lol

Yeah I agree Dave, he did look a bit ginger - but he made a couple of decent saves in the first half as well

Edited by FP General: 17/6/2009 01:03:34 PM

Thanks for that. Have to give credit to my little brother who was tweeting with me - without him it would of been nign on impossible to do .. not too sure if I will do it again though it was pretty tough to figure out who was who without squad numbers (all of them seem to be different) and the NYL coming on in the second half.

Cold weather wouldn't help, how was training BTW? :lol:

I was wondering why the tweets were coming from 2 different sources.

didn't go mate, rather be watching football then training!

lol u slack bastard

i went training ... and therefore missed out on the game.

commitment seanious .... commitment

haha

yeah nah to hard