It’s back to basics for the Brisbane Roar squad over the coming days as they embark on their first regular training week for more than a month.
The Brisbane club are clear first on the Hyundai A-League ladder after 20 fixtures this year but Head Coach Ange Postecoglou admitted there were still aspects of his team-s performance that he felt could be improved.
Now with the time to fine tune his squad, Postecoglou believes the time is right to get his side firing on all cylinders again.
“There are a few things that we obviously feel we could do better at, things that have crept into our game over the last four or five weeks that we haven-t had a chance to work on,” Postecoglou said.
“This week gives us a chance to re-establish our primary objectives in the way we want to play, go back to the basics of what we do and re-address those things and refresh the boys on the way we-re trying to play.
“When you play game to game to game, you don-t get a chance to do that.
“I think this week it will be a back to basics approach in making sure our set-up is right, our positioning is right as well as all the frameworks that we worked on in pre-season.”
While Postecoglou was pleased with the progress of the squad during their hectic schedule, he said he was looking forward to a more regular football routine which he knew his players would thrive in.
“It-s the start of December and the season finishes at the start of February and we-ve got 10 games,” he said.
“If you even it out, we-ve got one more midweek game, but we-ve also got a weekend off in between so it just means we go back to normality – playing, recovering, training and then playing again.
“It-s been a tough and intense time for everyone involved, players and coaches, it-s good to know we-ve got a decent return until the end of the year.”
Despite the team-s current run of form which has seen them unbeaten in their past 15 outings, the Brisbane coach backed his players to find another gear as they head into the latter end of the season.
Postecoglou said ample planning had been done to ensure the squad was still at their peak physically and mentally as they approached the league-s finals series.
“If we think there is improvement in us and after coming off a schedule like we have, there must be improvement in us then I don-t see any reason why we can-t play our best football in the final 10 games of the year,” he said.
“That-s always been our plan – we wanted to come home strong and play well in the finals.
“That-s the way we-ve planned our year out in terms of our training, in terms of our training loads, our intensity.
“We-ve got a good run in January with a few home games and we only have to go interstate once.
“That-s when we figured we-d play our best football and I see nothing that suggests that-s going to change.”
Brisbane Roar-s next home game is the December 26 derby clash with Gold Coast United. Kick-off for that match is 6pm and tickets are available through Ticketek (click here).
