Melbourne Victory are again set to turn to youth for their FFA Cup clash with Adelaide City as coach Tony Popovic manages his "fatigued" senior players.
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Victory will travel to South Australia for Wednesday night's round of 32 clash in what will be their fourth of five matches in the space of just over two weeks.
It falls just three days after a 3-0 win over Brisbane Roar sent Victory to the top of the A-League Men table.
Popovic fielded a youthful line-up in the recent FFA Cup play-off win over Perth Glory and is likely to do so again in the knockout competition, having previously stressed the need to rotate his squad through the busy schedule.
"We went into the last (FFA Cup) game to try and win the game and we'll do the same on Wednesday," Popovic said.
"We'll have a look on Monday at training and obviously the players will be very fatigued.
"It was only their second (ALM) game in many, many months.
"We'll see who's fit, who's available and we'll pick a squad accordingly that can go there (Adelaide) and hopefully get through to the next round."
Socceroos striker Chris Ikonomidis and vice-captain Roderick Miranda missed Victory's win over Brisbane with minor injuries and will not be considered to play against Adelaide City.
Popovic is hopeful both will be in the selection mix for Sunday's ALM clash with Perth at AAMI Park.
"We'd like to see (Ikonomidis) train throughout the week and then make an assessment at the end of the week and a decision," Popovic said.
"(Miranda) picked up a niggle during the week, which is happening for a lot of clubs, or it certainly is for us in the early part of the season.
"We know he's making good progress, as is Chris, but we'll judge it day by day.
"If they're available, that's great. If they're not, we'll have to wait another week."
Popovic brought in a dozen new faces for his first season at the helm.
The new-look team has opened the campaign with three straight wins in all competitions, but Popovic saw plenty of room for improvement after the performance against Brisbane.
"We showed our intent early, which was good, but we lost the ball too easily and then we had to defend in our half more often than we would've liked," Popovic said.
"We made it a little bit easy for our opponent to get possession, but that's a work in progress for us, like every part of our game is.
"It's a new group and we just want to keep getting better."
Australian Associated Press
