Injury sees marquee man sitting on the sidelines in the run to finals.
The Melbourne Heart’s chances of scraping into the A-League finals have taken a massive blow, with the club confirming captain Fred will not play again this year.
As the club hangs on in the race for the title, news of Fred’s torn quadricep muscle could not come at a worse time with Melbourne preparing to travel to face the Brisbane Roar without Jonatan Germano (hamstring), Simon Colosimo (suspended) and Patrick Gerhardt (international duty with Liberia).
However, coach John Aloisi believes the Heart’s finals chances still has a pulse, as he fancies his side to again silence the Roar.
“It suits us to play against Brisbane, so that gives us confidence to go up there and put in a good performance,” Aloisi told the Heart’s website
“It’s really important; we don’t want to look back and say, well we can finish last, we want to look back and say we’ve finished fifth, but it’s important that we get good results these last two games, that’s the most important thing.
“We still think that we can make finals and we still believe that we can go to Brisbane and win and I think that’s important that they players believe that.”
The Heart are undefeated in their last five games against Brisbane, with the men in red and white claiming 4-1 and 3-2 victories this season.
Melbourne currrently sit in ninth place with 27 points, and if they are to play beyond the regular season they will need to catch the Newcastle Jets (31 points) who occupy the sixth and last spot for the final.
Fred, who is on a reported $300,000 a year with the Heart, might have played his last game for the club with his contract runing out in April and a new-deal not in the works.
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