Newcastle Jets head coach Gary van Egmond is confident of getting a result in their Asian Champions League match against Nagoya Grampus on Tuesday night.
Newcastle Jets head coach Gary van Egmond is confident of getting a result in their Asian Champions League match against Nagoya Grampus on Tuesday night.
The Jets head into the match in third place in Group E with a win and a loss and will be looking to snatch a draw or a surprise win when they take on the powerhouse J-League team in Match Day three of the ACL.
The Newcastle boss said his side was prepared for a tough match but he indicated the Japanese team wasn-t impregnable, especially as the Jets would be ‘flying under the radar- somewhat.
“They (Nagoya) are definitely beatable,” van Egmond told the media at a press conference in Newcastle on Thursday.
“We just have to ensure that we don-t give away an early goal like we did against Beijing and we have been working on that.
“Nagoya is favourite to win our group and one of the favourites to win the whole thing so we are under no illusion as to how hard the match will be.
“They will have a case of not knowing too much about us and will only have the games against Ulsan and Beijing to go off, while we have done quite an in-depth study on them from the last few games in the ACL and J-League, so that puts us in good stead.”
However, van Egmond conceded the Jets- preparation has been dealt a body blow with the news Italian import Fabio Vignaroli is likely to miss the match due to an injury sustained at training.
“Vignaroli hasn-t trained today but we will a have a look at him again tomorrow but it is going to be a difficult one for him,” van Egmond said of the champion playmaker.
“We played in a game on Tuesday and he felt a twinge in his hamstring and he stopped pretty much straight away.”
“There is a slight tear that is bordering on grade one, so the travel doesn-t help in regards to any type of injury and we will see.
“We won-t be taking any risk with him because we have two home games against Nagoya and Beijing coming up and it will be fairly imperative that we get maximum points from them, so we will need our best team our for those two games.”
“He (Fabio) is a wonderful player and obviously extremely effective in linking up between the midfield and the front third. But that gives someone else an opportunity and with that they can take it with both hands and really go on with it.”
Newcastle leaves for Japan on Saturday April 4. Fox Sports 3 will televise the game live from 8pm on Tuesday April 7.
