JETS coach Gary van Egmond has urged his players not to let the club’s late-season resurgence be derailed by dropping points against Melbourne Heart at Hunter Stadium today.
For the first time in three matches the Jets are warm favourites to win against the struggling Heart and leapfrog the Victorians into fifth spot.
Surprise away wins over Brisbane Roar and Sydney FC have resuscitated Newcastle’s season and renewed confidence in van Egmond’s game plan.
But the coach says the progress the squad had made by earning seven points in consecutive away matches against Adelaide United, Brisbane and Sydney will be destroyed if they fail to beat the Heart.
‘‘The performance is still very critical for us, but to get those three points is vital,’’ he said.
‘‘We’ve got a chance to leapfrog Melbourne Heart into fifth spot if we were to get the three points and that’s a big opportunity.
‘‘If we were to lose it will get very difficult for us to get into that fifth spot. We obviously encourage all the teams that are just behind us to get into the six as well.’’
The Heart have failed to win a match in 2012 and risk a season that began with promise disintegrating.
Their last win was their 4-0 demolition of Sydney FC on December 29 but a goalless draw last week with Melbourne Victory has reignited the hopes of the southerners.
Brazilian attacking midfielder Fred was expected to return from a groin injury today, but Heart coach John van’t Schip postponed those plans for another week.
Former Jets captain Matt Thompson is unavailable with a knee injury.
Despite the injuries and the loss of Aziz Behich, Jason Hoffman and Mate Dugandzic on Olyroos duty, van Egmond said the Heart could not be taken lightly.
‘‘They’re a good team and are well-organised, well-coached and a team that looks to control the game,’’ he said.
‘‘We know we’re in for a good game and I think it should be a good spectacle of football as both teams will look to try and control the match.’’
The Jets are expected to retain the squad that beat the Sky Blues 5-2, which was their most fluent attacking display of the season.
The Jets adopted a 3-4-3 formation last Sunday but with Heart expected to play 4-3-3, van Egmond said he would probably revert to a back four.
‘They play with three up front, it would be fairly adventurous if we were to go three on three at the back and have someone just in front of our back three,’’ he said.
‘‘We’’ve done that previously and we didn’t get a result, but we had a strong performance when we did that against Brisbane [in round seven], so if we can do that against Brisbane we could do that probably against anyone.’’
A four-man back line will likely push Taylor Regan onto the bench with Korean Byun Sung-hwan to return to left-back and Ruben Zadkovich pushed back on the right.
Van Egmond said Ali Abbas might feature more prominently, because of his sparkling effort against Sydney, which produced a goal and an assist.
‘‘For him to come in when the pace of the game goes out, it really suits him,’’ he said.
‘‘He’s getting more and more confidence and as he does he’ll obviously get more game time.
‘‘He’s starting to understand the positioning with or without the ball better, so we know he has a lot of quality and we’ll just keep working with him.
‘‘It might be a case we start with Ali. His fitness isn’t an issue, he’d be pretty close to one of the fittest in the team.’’
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