| PHOTO: Jim Webster |
After defeating the Glory in Perth on Saturday Melbourne Victory utility Mark Milligan believes that the Victory squad has championship winning characteristics.
“I think it’s a squad that has championship winning characteristics,” Milligan told the press this morning.
But the Socceroo understands that the Victory need to dig deep if they can’t play their usual fluent passing game, especially in tough games like they did against Perth last weekend.
“We try and play a good game, a passing game and what not, but I think last weekend in Perth we really dug deep, it was a hard trip over there,” he said.
The Victory struggled in Western Australia and Milligan believes this week’s Australia Day clash with Sydney will give the Melburnians a chance to redeem themselves.
“Obviously we were very disappointed in the way we did a lot of things and we’ve been working on those this week.
“The weekend it was nice to get the three points, but it was disappointing the way we went about it and we’re out to redeem ourselves this weekend.”
Sydney have just beaten the Wellington Phoenix 7-1 with marquee man Alessandro Del Piero scoring four, but Milligan doesn’t believe any special attention is required to take care of the Italian legend.
“We aren’t going to pay any sort of attention to him (Del Piero). We have our own shape and we’ll set up as normal.
“I think this week’s about us, as every week this season has been. We’re working very hard on us. We’re going to go into this game approaching as we do every other game.”
The former Sydney man believes that Del Piero can’t do everything on his own and requires others around him to perform at his peak like Jason Culina and Joel Griffiths.
“They’re (Sydney) very, very dangerous, they’ve got quality across the pitch and I don’t think Del Piero would have had the chances he did if it wasn’t because of the quality around him.
“He’s an unbelievable player, but unless the boys around him are chipping in, it’s difficult for him.”
With the clash sold out the 27-year-old is expecting an exciting crowd.
“I’m just looking forward to the Australia Day crowd coming out and hopefully another three points so we can get a little closer to the top two.
“With the crowd majority ours it’s always going to be exciting.”
With points picked up on the road Milligan is hoping the Victory can continue the form over the remainder of the season.
“We’re just excited to be back in here in Melbourne after a couple of weeks away, we’ve had some really good results over the past few weeks and we need to continue that over the last ten games,” the former Jet said.
