Victory to give Velupillay until the 11th hour to prove fitness, City plot Leckie role
Nishan Velupillay’s status for the A-League Men grand final is set to go down to the wire while City boss Aurelio Vidmar has yet to determine how he'll deploy Socceroo attacker Mat Leckie.
Nishan Velupillay’s status for the A-League Men grand final is set to go down to the wire, with Victory set to give the attacker until the 11th hour to prove his fitness for a first-ever Melbourne Derby grand final. Melbourne City, meanwhile, are yet to determine what role attacker Mat Leckie can and will play in the contest.
After initially declaring that “it doesn’t look good” for the 24-year-old in the aftermath of Victory’s semifinal win over Auckland last Saturday, coach Arthur Diles revealed on Monday that scans performed upon the team’s return had come back better than anticipated.
The Socceroo went down with an injury to his lower right leg in the final moments of the first half of the second leg of his side’s semifinal, managing to limp through to half time but emerging to watch the second stanza on crutches and with ice wrapped around his ankle. A moon boot was soon added to his ensemble once in Melbourne and he was unsighted at Victory training on both Tuesday and Wednesday.
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Especially when accounting for Diles insistence he wouldn’t risk the winger – whose status for a Socceroos squad to be named following the grand final is also up in the air – the odds for a miracle recovery would appear to be slim. But Velupillay will be given the chance to defy the odds.
“It's still early," said Diles. "We'll give him to the 11th hour and we'll make that decision on Friday. But at this stage, it's probably 50-50.
"He's walking better, but one thing's to walk and one thing's to be up for a final. In terms of general walking, he is better, there’s a significant improvement in that regard. But it’s still way too early to have a clear indication."
Injured shot stopper Mitch Langerak was also declared as being a “wait and see” proposition by the coach, with Tuesday and Wednesday representing the first time he’d done back-to-back training sessions – albeit separate from the rest of Victory’s keepers – since he injured his foot. Given the standout play of Jack Duncan, however, it’s unclear if Victory would even be inclined to make a change should the veteran make a late recovery.
In better news for Diles, left-backs Kasey Bos and Adama Traore have both appeared to be moving freely in training this week and progressing well for the decider.
"They're looking good,” said the coach. “That's a nice bit of news, that they're in a much better position than we anticipated last week. If it keeps going this way, come Friday, I think they'll be up for selection.”
Almost remarkably, given the deluge of injuries they’ve had to deal with at times throughout the campaign, Melbourne City will come into Saturday’s decider with a largely settled squad – the long-since ruled out Samuel Souprayen, Jayden Necovski, Andrew Nabbout, and Jimmy Jeggo the only absences.
Logging 45 minutes in the second-leg of City’s semifinal with Western United last week, Leckie’s minutes have continued to ramp up in the three games since he returned from a hamstring injury but with the possibility of extra-time or even penalties looming over the game – the latter something that could also impact Victory’s use of Langerak – Vidmar said that the Socceroo attacker’s role for the weekend had yet to be determined.
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“I've mentioned many times before that he's such a crucial player for us,” said Vidmar. “We haven't relied on him at all this year and the moments that he has come on, he's done a great job for us. We've still got a couple more sessions to go and see how we're going to set up – what’s going to be the best thing for the team.”
If City is to claim the second title in their history on Saturday, they'll have to defy recent history to do so. Not only has the club lost three of the four grand finals they've qualified for over the past half a decade but they haven't defeated their local rivals in over two years.
Vidmar, who previously fell to Victory in a grand final as coach of Adelaide United in 2009, has yet to salute against the side in dark blue since landing at Casey Fields, but, ahead of his eighth go at it on the weekend, said that each attempt had made City better.
“We've adapted and we've learned from the previous games that we played against them,” he explained. “We've improved, certainly, from round three to the last time we played them. They've changed a little bit as well, with a new coach and guys like [Jason] Geria who are not there anymore.
“So we've had to adapt, and we've had to learn and to grow. And I think we've done that step by step.”