A-League Men: Perth Glory coach expects new signings Lachie Wales and Patrick Wood to play against Newcastle

Perth Glory coach David Zdrilic expects a host of his side’s new signings to make their club debuts on Saturday when head to Newcastle to potentially overtake the Jets on the ladder. But Zdrilc said he would not throw caution to the wind and would slowly integrate the new additions into the squad, particularly given a recent upswing in performances. The Glory take on the Jets at McDonald Jones Stadium on the weekend knowing a win would see them jump above Newcastle on the ladder and into 11th spot, albeit with the hosts sporting two games in hand. And despite some improved showings of late, Perth will still enter the game as underdogs, with last month’s 4-0 hiding at home at the hands of Newcastle still somewhat fresh in the memory. However, Zdrilic confirmed Glory debuts for Championship-winning attacker Lachie Wales and on-loan Sydney FC forward Patrick Wood were likely. Japanese defender Yuto Misao is also in the mix according to Zdrilic — although he said fellow new recruit Takuya Okamoto might be a bit further away. “Not all of them (the new signings) but Patrick Wood has obviously been playing at Sydney and he’s fit, Lachy Wales has looked very good and will play a part,” he said. “Misao has also looked very good. The Japanese boys are a bit different because they’ve come from being off and not actually playing, so it’s really who’s sort of further along and Misao is definitely the one that’s further along and looking good in training. “We’ve got another training tomorrow, and if he’s ready to go, then he’ll play some part as well.” Zdrilic said Nicholas Pennington would need to prove his fitness after he was an early substitution following an ankle knock in last Tuesday’s loss to Western Sydney Wanderers. Amid recent improvements and an increased competitiveness on-field following the Glory’s horror start to the season, Zdrilic said they had looked like a different team in recent weeks. “It’s almost back to a pre-season mentality, but we’re also aware that we need to fight for every result and every performance we do,” he said. “Now we’ve got to try and integrate some more players, so we got to be mindful of that. We’ve got a couple guys going to the (national) under-20s in a couple of weeks, so we’re going to have to change again. “We’ve got the mindset that whoever’s playing, whoever’s there, we’ve got a different mentality now, that we want to approach every game and make sure that we’re fighting for the win.” Zdrilic is friendly with Jets coach Rob Stanton, and said his side would need to keep the ball better than they have done previously this season. “He wants to build up, and he’s got very good mechanisms for doing that. We’re more aggressive in the way that we’re pressing now, and obviously with the ball, the key for us in the last few games is — with the exception of the Sydney game — we’ve had more of the ball, we’ve kept the ball better,” he said. “In the first, half of the season, we’d win the ball, but we’d give it back straight away and you just can’t sustain tempo for the whole game if you do that.”