Sydney FC confident Socceroos midfielder can beat quad injury recovery timeline
Sydney FC faces a tactical puzzle ahead of Saturday night’s battle with Central Coast Mariners after losing Socceroos midfielder Paul Okon-Engstler to a quad injury.
Sydney FC coach Ufuk Talay is confident key midfielder Paul Okon-Engstler can make a quicker-than-expected recovery from a quad injury that’s predicted to sideline him until next month.
The 20-year-old Socceroo suffered the injury in Sydney’s 1-0 derby loss to the Wanderers last Saturday, with the likelihood being that he won’t return to action until early January.
However, Talay is targeting Okon-Engstler to be for the Sky Blues’ home battle against Auckland FC on December 27.
“He felt his quad in the Wanderers game, so we’re a little bit conservative because he’s a younger player,” Talay said.
“We want to make sure we don’t hinder him where he re-injures it. It’s between four-to-six weeks, but I’m thinking … he should be back for the Auckland game.”
In Okon-Engstler’s absence, Talay has been “tinkering” with his potential line-up for his side’s battle with Central Coast Mariners in Gosford on Saturday night.
“The set-up may be a little bit different with the way we start the game,” the Sydney coach said.
“Whether we bring Wataru (Kamijo) in and play another No. 6 (holding midfielder), or Corey (Hollman) has started training with the group and is available for selection, or do we go with an extra attacking player and play with one No. 6?
“You’ll see that picture (on Saturday) evening.”
Whatever his line-up is, Talay will demand greater physicality from the Sky Blues after their four-game winning streak was brought to an end by Western Sydney.
“I don’t think we challenged them in the physical space as well as we should have in the derby, but also there were some tactical elements to our game that we didn’t do well, especially when we had the ball,” he said.
Mariners coach Warren Moon was confident his team could “cause a problem” for the first-placed Sydneysiders.
“We’ve surprised people with how competitive we’ve been early season, so it’s another challenge for us to go out there and show people we’re a good team, that we’ve got good players, and test ourselves against the competition leaders,” Moon said.
“We’re excited for the challenge, and we’re confident we can cause a problem.”
Moon said the Mariners’ plans for Sydney would include nullifying the danger presented by English winger Joe Lolley, who has been the form player of the competition this season.
“We’re aware of his threats, but we’ll focus more on ourselves, and come up with a plan to be attacking, cause them problems and try to get three points,” he said.
Originally published as Sydney FC confident Socceroos midfielder can beat quad injury recovery timeline
