Melbourne City midfielder Steven Ugarkovic has reflected on the importance of senior players stepping up ahead of City’s clash with Western United on Tuesday evening.
Tuesday’s fixture is City’s second in five days at AAMI Park and Aurelio Vidmar’s side have the opportunity to go six games unbeaten.
Read Steven Ugarkovic’s pre-match thoughts below…
STEPPING UP
“It’s hard, you look around the changeroom and there’s a lot of experience out [injured] and you look at the players that are out, most of them are internationals as well so that hurts the team. We look around to the boys who have come in and they’ve done excellent jobs, but it’s tough to see – obviously they want to be out there and it’s unlucky, but it’s part of football and it’s obviously a very, very unlucky run.
“It’s hard to see but we can’t worry about it too much because we have a job to do, we have to go out there and maybe us older boys who are out there need to step up more and draw on these younger players who aren’t as experienced to step up and act more experienced, so I think that’s a good thing that we’ve had the last few weeks and I think on the weekend it showed.
“Harry stepping up and scoring a goal and Nate grabbing his first, so I think players are stepping up and realising that we’re the ones on the field and we have to do it.”
FOCUSED ON TUESDAY
“It’s obviously good [to defeat Wellington], everyone loves getting a win and to do it like that was good.
“But everyone’s level-headed, we know we have a short turnaround, and we have to regroup and go again so the focus was recovery, and we go from there.
“We’re looking forward to it, I think it’s going to be a tough game, obviously they’re [Western United] in a good run form so it’s up to us to play our game and focus on us and we go from there. I think it’s going to be a very good game and I’m looking forward to it.”
VERSATILITY IS KEY
“It’s good [my versatility], it shows that they trust me as well, and being able to do a job in multiple positions as a footballer these days is quite valuable, especially now with a few injuries.
“It’s important to adapt and be able to help the team wherever you can, I’m someone that does that and enjoys doing that. Obviously, I’m a team first player so having to play wingback or whatever, I’ll do it to get the results.”
