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Melbourne Victory enter their A-League derby as underdogs and will bring German defender Tim Hoogland straight into their starting line-up.
Melbourne Victory have received a massive boost ahead of Saturday's crunch Melbourne derby with German defender Tim Hoogland set for his first A-League start against Melbourne City.
Hoogland suffered a quad injury the day before the round one derby, then came off the bench against Adelaide in round seven but tweaked his quad again, missing another three games.
Coach Marco Kurz confirmed Hoogland would return and make his starting debut, adding some much-needed defensive class and leadership at the back in one of Victory's biggest games of the season.
"Hoogland is available," Kurz said on Friday.
"That's really good news - we had the same situation before the first game and he got the injury but now he's available."
Thomas Deng (groin) and Kristijan Dobras (red-card suspension) are unavailable but otherwise, Victory have a full squad to choose from.
Hoogland will immediately take on a senior role marshalling Victory's defence against Socceroo Jamie Maclaren and offsiders like Craig Noone, Javier Cabrera and Adrian Luna.
Kurz said it was "not risky" to bring the defender straight into the starting line-up.
"We signed him to play, he will start," Kurz said.
"We signed him as the leader from the back position and he can organise. We know he's for sure not fully fit as (he will be) when he plays a couple of games in a row but he will stabilise our defence and it's good for our game.
"I think one of the strengths is his organisation - that's very good, he can organise the team from the back position - that's really good - also he's agile, he's fast, he's a good header, he's very complete and we are happy that he's back."