A-League Women: Perth Glory coach Stephen Peters urges side to not take Western Sydney Wanderers lightly

Perth Glory coach Stephen Peters has warned his side cannot take last-placed Western Sydney Wanderers lightly, lest they strike a blow to his side’s A-League Women’s finals hopes. Three of Glory’s final four games are at home as they attempt to chase down an admittedly unlikely top-six berth, starting with the Wanderers on Saturday night at the Sam Kerr Football Centre. Perth are six points off sixth place, but have the fifth-best home record in the league and a slip-up from the teams above them could open the door enough for them to sneak in. But Peters said Western Sydney’s recent impressive form, which saw them win three in a row prior to last week’s defeat to Wellington, must be heeded by his team. “They’re obviously down the bottom of the table, but that can make them a little bit more dangerous in terms of making sure you don’t drop down to a level where you’re not taking them seriously,” he said. “It’s very important that we take this game extremely seriously and if you look at their recent form, they’ve been one of the form teams of the competition. “We’ve won our last three games (at home) so we need to be going in with a good level of confidence, but we also can’t afford complacency. “We love the home games, we are above average at home. The Wanderers will be a prickly team, they’ll come and make life difficult for us.” Georgia Cassidy is closing in on a return from a quad injury and could feature this weekend, but Peters said Kelli Brown’s status was unclear after she underwent a heart scan last week which forced her out of their 3-3 draw with Central Coast. Peters said while the aim was still to make finals, the reality was they needed to perform week-to-week and find some much-needed consistency. “The way I’m looking at is, if we win this week, do our bit, and the teams above us lose, and we’re only three points out, then we’re three points out, and then we’re go into the rest of the season three points out with three games to play,” he said.