Waitakere set for WaiBOP clash

Waitakere United are looking to make sure their next experience of QBE Stadium goes much better than the first, when they were comprehensively beaten by a rampant Auckland City.

United will return to Albany on Thursday evening to take on WaiBOP United in their first home match since the 4-0 opening day loss to Auckland just over a week ago.

They have since bounced back from that defeat with a well-deserved 2-0 away victory over Southern United and are hoping for more of the same when WaiBOP come to town.

“There’s obviously always elements you can improve and work on but, if we continue to play in the manner we did and create the same sort of chances, then we’ll be okay,” player-coach Brian Shelley says.

“It’s only one game but I knew what the boys were capable of and it was good to see them do that. We were disappointed with the last 20 minutes against Auckland so we needed to put that right.”

After playing in a counter-attacking manner against Auckland, Shelley’s side showed it has more than one string to its bow by adopting a more possession-based approach in Dunedin and it’s the latter style that is likely to come to the fore again on Thursday.

Shelley is confident his men have the quality to dispose of WaiBOP but knows they will be in for another tough challenge.

Like Waitakere, the visitors lost their opening game of the campaign – a televised 3-2 defeat to Team Wellington on Sunday – but Shelley was among many viewers who thought they were unfortunate to miss out on claiming any points.

“WaiBOP will be a difficult game for us and they were very unlucky not to have picked up a result against Team Wellington,” he says.

“They seem to have some depth to their squad this year and have some real threats going forward.”

Two of those will be familiar to Waitakere fans as Maksim Manko and Dylan Stansfield have both played for the club in recent seasons before trying their luck down the southern motorway.

The Waitakere defence will also need to keep an eye on the likes of Mark Jones and Marc Evans, who both caught the eye in the loss to Team Wellington.

Shelley has already shown he is not afraid to make changes to the starting line-up with Sam O’Regan and Dylan Manickum both dropping out of the side against Southern, replaced by Craig Wylie and Chad Coombes.

The outgoing pair had to make do with places on the bench and the strength of the substitutes’ list underlined the talent available to Shelley with goal machine Nathaniel Bowen, United States import Brian Cunningham and New Zealand U-20 international Noah Billingsley all also unable to secure a starting berth.

With no suspensions or injury concerns among the squad this week, Shelley will again have a welcome selection dilemma on his hands for Thursday.

“We have a clean bill of health going into this game but, as always, we treat each game in isolation and will look to pick 16 players that will give us the best chance of getting a result,” he says.

The match against WaiBOP United takes place on Thursday 19 November at QBE Stadium from 7.35pm.

Tickets available at the gate: Familty Pass $25, Adults $15, Students $5, Children U-16 FREE