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Feb 08, 2018   |  1:06AM AET

Muscat’s Victory ready for busy period

Muscat’s Victory ready for busy period

Melbourne Victory Head Coach Kevin Muscat is confident in his side’s ability to navigate a busy period of fixtures with the Asian Champions League beginning next week.

Victory takes on Brisbane Roar on Friday night before welcoming Ulsan Hyundai for Match Day 1 of the Asian Champions League next Tuesday.

Despite the games coming thick and fast and a heavy travel load, Muscat insists that his focus is solely on the clash with Roar at AAMI Park.

“At this stage we’re just focused on getting three points tomorrow night against what will be a desperate Brisbane team,” Muscat said. 

“That is the priority; tomorrow night. If we start looking ahead we’ll lose sight of what’s important and that is the preparation and the performance [tomorrow] more than anything.

Following the departure of Mark Milligan and with the busy schedule of matches coming up, Muscat indicated he will look to try various players through the midfield positions. 

“At this point in time we’ve got four or five players in there that can jostle out for three positions.

“They’ve all got different characteristics to their games and with the number of games coming up, I daresay all of them will get their opportunity.

“Terry can played in that role, Mati Sanchez has played alongside Carl a number of times with positive results this year and I think it’s nice that the players go in there under a little bit of pressure to perform, to keep themselves in the team.”  

While Lawrence Thomas has been cleared to play following his head knock against Newcastle, Muscat confirmed Thomas Deng won’t feature on Friday night.

“Tommy still hasn’t come up but we’re optimistic that he’ll start training in the next few days.

“He’s got a slight issue with his adductor, it’s only slight but it’s stopping him from completing full training so there’s no point taking any risks with him.”