By Tara Murray
The start of the Victorian Premier League 1 season came at the perfect time for Western United’s Jake Najdovski.
Najdovski, who is part of Western United’s squad for a third straight season, was getting minutes off the bench for the A-League team.
With the club’s academy side kicking off action in March, Najdovski has had the chance to go go back and play some minutes in the VPL.
“It was a good time in the A-League season that I could drop down,” he said. “I’d been training for a while and I was getting some minutes in the first team.
“It was good to drop down and get into some good form and score goals as well.”
Najdovski scored eight goals in five matches for the academy side, including a hat-trick in one game.
“I always like to score goals and help the team,” he said. “I’ve had some good seasons in the VPL with the academy and I always go out there and try my best in the academy.”
He said the extra time on the pitch had allowed him to come back into the top side fitter and stronger into the A-League.
“I did get some minutes in the previous year,” he said of the A-League. “Things have been really positive and after a good pre-season I’ve been getting 10 to 15 minutes off the bench this season.”
Najdovski’s confidence is starting to show through for the A-League side, recently contributing his first goal assist.
He said it was something that he had been working on for a while. A few more assists are hopefully on the cards for him in the rest of the season.
“I definitely want to have a good back part of the season,” he said. “Hopefully I can help them win games and be in a good position to play finals.”
Najdovski is part of the young brigade at Western United with many having come through the club’s academy.
He said it’s really exciting to see what they can all do.
“There’s a good mixture of youth and some experience,” he said. “We’re learning off the boss [John Aloisi] and he’s putting in a lot of time into the young boys.
“It’s a good environment and everyone is learning and putting games together.”
With a young side, Western has surprised many people this season.
After 21 games, Western sits in second spot.
Najdovski said the playing group had confidence in what they could do.
“I’m not surprised,” he said. “We all know within ourselves we are on the right path,” he said. “The boss said to us in the pre-season that people will talk and use that as motivation.
“We’re on the right path and doing the right things at training. “
Najdovski said they were taking it game by game as they head into the back half of the season.
Western played bottom side Perth Glory on Saturday.
Najdovski said before the game they were keen to get out on the park after not playing the previous two weeks.
