Perth Glory coach Richard Garcia is confident his team is ahead of where they were last season despite the club sitting on the bottom of the A-League Men ladder.
Glory's on-again, off-again campaign has been heavily affected by COVID-19 and Western Australia's hard border.
Perth, whose only appearance at home was their season-opening draw against Adelaide, sit dead last after collecting just eight points from their first eight games.
They are three points adrift of their nearest rivals Brisbane Roar, who they face in Launceston on Sunday.
But Garcia isn't panicking, knowing the ladder is misleading given that Glory have games in hand on all of their rivals.
For example, third-placed Adelaide are 10 points ahead of Glory but have played five more matches.
Glory are set to be handed a huge number of home games in the second half of the season after WA announced it would open its border on March 3.
Garcia said he was staying "very calm" despite the team's ladder position.
"We've only played eight games," Garcia said.
"The majority of those have been away from home. When we look at the table, last year we took 10 points away from home.
"We've already got seven, so we're well ahead of where we were last year.
"There's been a definite improvement in our performances as far as defence is concerned.
"We've lost four games and all have been 1-0, games I felt we should have got something out of. The resilience in the group is growing."
Brisbane's situation is more dire given they have tallied just 11 points from 11 games, with their most recent performance being a 3-0 loss to Wellington Phoenix.
That defeat has come at a heavy cost too, with leading scorer Nikola Mileusnic picking up a calf injury which is set to rule him out for a few weeks.
With Luke Ivanovic (quad) not yet ready to start, it leaves the Roar scrambling for forward options and could mean Japanese striker Ryo Wada makes his first appearance since signing on loan from J-League outfit Sagan Tosu.
The Glory have been boosted by the recovery of star recruit Daniel Sturridge from COVID-19, with the English striker to make his return off the bench.
Garcia said a number of his players had suffered from shortness of breath following their recent bouts of COVID-19, but the situation was improving every week.
