Jobe Wheelhouse says he will approach his 100th match the same as any other, with three points being his main priority.
Hunter Ports Newcastle Jets captain Jobe Wheelhouse will make his 100th A-League appearance for his hometown Club when the Jets take on Western Sydney Wanderers at Parramatta Stadium this weekend.
Despite the achievement, Wheelhouse said he will be approaching the match the same as any other, with the three points being his main priority.
“It-s just another game for us and we want to go down to Sydney and get a really good result, that-s the most important thing, because milestones come and go,” he said.
Wheelhouse praised the improvement the Wanderers have made since the two side met in a pre-season friendly at Broadmeadow in September.
“We played them in pre-season and we batted them off the park in the first half and I thought they might be in for a bit of a long season,” Wheelhouse said.
“In last couple of weeks, they-ve really turned things around. Poppa has got them doing a really good job defensively and I think they-ve only conceded three goals in five games.
“They-re very good defensively and they-re very good on the counter so we-re not taking them for granted. They-re a good side and we need to be on our game to beat them.
“They-ve got plenty of motivation to go and play well against us and I think we do to. It should be a really good game.
“They-ve hit some form in the last couple of weeks and we-ve been playing some really good stuff as well, so I-m looking forward to it.”
Newcastle have scored the second-highest number of goals in the A-League so far this season, but have conceded just as many. Wheelhouse said the Jets would be looking the fix their leaky defence against Western Sydney.
“The brand of football we want to play is attacking and possession based, but at the end of the day we want to try and get results as well,” he said.
“If we-re copping two or three goals every week, it makes it hard for our front guys to have to score the same amount or more just to win a game.
“We don-t want that, we want to be able just to score the two or three goals, but not concede so many, so definitely a clean sheet will be really good for us.”
With the Wanderers possessing a number of aerial threats including Michael Beauchamp and Nikloai Topor-Stanley, the Jets will have to be at their absolute best when defending corners and free-kicks.
“I think last year we only two or three goals from set pieces all; year and that was one of our strong points,” he said.
“This year we-ve already conceded the same amount in four or five games and it is something we-ve worked on in training this week.
“We know how good Nikolai and Beauchamp are in the air, so we-ve got to be very careful there.”
