Wanderers head coach Markus Babbel says he has to contend with a selection headache now that he has a full quota of players from which to choose ahead of the game against the Newcastle Jets at McDonald Jones Stadium on Saturday night.
The return from international duty of the Olyroos contigent including Keanu Baccus, Kosta Grozos and Tass Mourdoukoutas as well as the return of Bruce Kamau, Nick Sulivan and Tarek Elrich from injury has seen the Wanderers take on a much more formidable look.
It even allowed Babbel to start marquee striker Alex Meier from the bench in the unlucky 3-2 loss to Melbourne City last Friday night.
“Alex had problems in the beginning of the week and could not do the stuff 100 per cent,” said Babbel.
“We knew we have to work hard against Melbourne City.
“We thought Kwame (Yeboah) could do a bit better and that Alex would be important from the bench and that’s what happened, he came on and gave the assist for the second goal.
“This is a good headache now what we have with players coming back. We are much stronger on the bench and it is what you want as a coach.”
Kamau was integral to the excellent performance produced by the Wanderers against City – the team’s best performance so far this season.
Having been used as a right-back during an impressive pre-season before he was injured, Kamau relished playing further up the field in the attacking third as he caused the City defence all sorts of problems in his first game of the Hyundai A-League season.
“He did a fantastic job, great hard working, creating goal chances,” said Babbel.
“A really good performance and I am very happy for him.”
Yeboah rewarded Babbel’s faith in him, scoring a quality brace of goals to open his Hyundai A-League goalscoring account this season.
Despite the loss, Babbel found plenty of positives in the Wanderers performance.
“The boys did a fantastic job, played a good game … it was a very unlucky result,” explained Babbel.
“We created many chances and that was a bit the problem because we couldn’t score the second one (until late in the game).”
