Former Melbourne Heart coach John van't Schip still plotting against Melbourne ... - NEWS.com.au

John van't Schip (L) will try help John Aloisi (R) get a win over Heart's crosstown rivals. Picture: Michael Klein. Source: News Limited

FORMER Melbourne Heart coach John van't Schip and new assistant Gerard Nus are hoping to plot the downfall of Melbourne Victory in next Saturday’s derby.

Spaniard Nus arrived in Melbourne this week to take up his role as assistant alongside Hayden Foxe, while van’t Schip arrived last week to take up his post as technical manager.

Nus, who was head of academy at English Championship club Brighton last season with Gus Poyet, was part of Rafa Benitez’s coaching staff at Liverpool, will also help run Heart’s soon to be formed college of football.

Foxe travelled to Tasmania to watch Victory’s 3-0 win over Western Sydney last Sunday and they’ve spent the last few days examining DVDs of Victory’s pre-season games to determine the gameplan for the Etihad Stadium season opener.

Both clubs have tried to keep the tail-end of their preparations secret with Victory playing recent friendlies against Newcastle Jets and Adelaide United behind closed doors at AAMI Park.

Heart meanwhile cancelled Friday’s intraclub match and reverted back to a normal training session instead.

Aloisi said retaining possession will be one the key factors next Saturday.

"We’ve got a fair idea of how Victory play, we’ve been working a bit on that this week and we’ll do more next week," Aloisi said.

"We know they are a very good side, good passing and movement and if you don’t press them right they’ll outplay you and end up at the other end very quickly in front of goal.

"We’ll have to make sure we're organised and secondly when we have the ball we can keep it and create problems for Victory.

"We feel we’ll be better having the ball and not allowing Victory to dictate the game. We want to be able to control the game better than them.

"They have some players missing (Kosta Barbarouses and Mark Milligan) but normally the players that come in do exactly the same role for Ange so we’re quite confident that not much will change come round one with what they’ve been doing in pre-season."