SURPRISE SELECTION
Lions thinking outside box to replace left back
GEELONG will drop a selection bombshell for its mustwin clash with Ballarat City at Stead Park today.
The Lions will be without left back Josh Pugh, who has been forced to return to Perth.
A lack of defensive depth has forced coach Dom Barba to think outside the box to find Pugh’s replacement.
However, he is keeping the name of his new left back secret until team sheets are due.
“There’s not (a lot of options). At the end of the day we have got good footballers, it creates a good opportunity (for someone to take it),” Barba said.
“There’s a couple of opportunities here for me to reinvent someone and there’s a couple of opportunities for someone to put their hand up and say ‘I want to be reinvented’.
“It will be a surprise change that we will present.
“But I think it will be better than what we have got at the moment, largely because of the ability to create an attack from our defence which at the moment we haven’t got.”
Barba has a history of being able to unearth players in new positions, with Matt Thorne transitioning from an attacking midfielder to a defensive midfielder in Geelong’s State League 1 title-winning season last year.
Today’s home game is without a doubt a must-win clash for the Lions, who have banked 10 points from their opening eight games.
Last week Geelong went down to St Albans 3-1, putting in a performance Barba labelled in the post game as “rubbish”.
A loss to ninth-placed Ballarat City could see Geelong lose touch with a compressed NPL1 table, where just nine points split the top eight.
It’s been a rocky start for the Lions in their debut NPL1 season, winning three, drawing one and losing four of their eight games.
Barba, who was announced as interim coach after the club parted ways with George Karkaletsis, said his squad was struggling to find confidence and it was having an impact on their performance.
“I don’t think we are that far away. It’s not easy coming into an environment that you didn’t create yourself and then having to redesign with the tools that you have,” Barba said.
“The player group, obviously there are elements of doubt — because of their prior performance — of their overall football ability. “It’s a strange situation. “You don’t lose your talent, but you can lose your confidence.
“You can see sometimes that even good players are questioning themselves sometimes.”
Ballarat will be far from a walkover for Barba’s team, with City showing good fight in its 4-3 loss to Brunswick City last week.
Barba said the Lions would be punished if they entered the game expecting to just walk away with three points.
“Ballarat is doing a fantastic job. I went and saw them last week and okay they lost 4-3, but they could have won the game,” he said.
“For them to come back, those young kids to come back … it’s a credit to what they’re doing down there.”