Canberra United’s finals chances have received a boost with Chinese international Wu Chengshu available to return in the A-League Women home clash with Newcastle after recovering from a cheekbone fracture.
Chengshu suffered the injury in the round two clash with Brisbane Roar and required surgery.
Coach Njegosh Popovich provided an update on her condition on Friday ahead of Saturday night’s match in Canberra.
“Chengshu will be back,” Popovich said.
“She is getting her mask fitted today for the facial fracture and she is cleared to play this weekend.
“Technically she is unbelievable. The biggest challenge for her is that she has been out for five weeks but she has been training and last time we had conditioning she fared quite well.
“She wanted to travel to Adelaide last week. She definitely has that mentality of wanting to play and we can’t wait to get her back on the field.”
Canberra are on eight points on the ALW ladder, five points outside the top four. The Jets are on seven points. Both sides need a win to keep alive their finals hopes with the hosts buoyed after their 2-0 win over Adelaide United last week.
“It is a psychological win for us. Psychology is a big part of sport these days and if we can continue on the winning way we should be knocking on the top four before long,” Popovich said.
“We just need to start converting more of our chances. It is a confidence thing. We have some of the best front players in the competition.
“I feel sorry for the side that gets on the end of us when we do start putting them in the back of the net because it could be a scary result.”
One attacking midfielder impressing the coach is New Zealand international Grace Jale.
“Grace is a super person, a great player to watch,” Popovich said.
“She has some incredible talent in terms of going forward and her running metres are incredible. I can’t get over the work rate.
“She does things so easily that people think she is relaxing and being lazy, but the reality is that she makes it look easy.
“She is up around 11 kilometres a game and 1.8 kilometres (at) high-speed.”
