It will be the fourth derby of the season, including City’s 2-0 FFA Cup Semi-Final win in late October.

City have dropped two of their past five games, after  losing 2-1 to both Newcastle Jets and Adelaide United.

Franjic said teams were playing on the counter-attack adding he “can’t really release too much information” in their plans of fixing the issue.

“The confidence is always there we look around the change rooms every day and there’s a lot of quality players especially up front that can hurt teams,” Franjic said.

“At the moment we’re having a lot of penalty entries and having a lot of shots at goals. Some of this hasn’t been clicking over the last few weeks where the ball is ending up in the net.

“We’re confident in ourselves that the next few weeks, it’s going to turn and we’ll be giving a few teams a hammering and no better way than this week against Victory.”

Franjic assured his club have worked hard to counter the counter-attackers.

“Teams are dropping off on us, it’s obvious now, they’re letting us play and trying to hit with a sucker punch,” he said.

“That’s what’s been happening over the past few weeks but we’ve worked hard all week. We’ve rectified all the problems and I don’t think it’ll be happening too much anymore.

“It’s been frustrating, we’ve really rectified the problem this week and from now I’m hoping it’s going to happen as it has happened against Newcastle. Sometimes it is a bit of not having luck on our side. They have three or four shots and we concede two goals.”

The Sky Blues are currently 11 points clear of Victory in first position.

But as City coach Michael Valkanis has said in the past fortnight, a top two position is still mathematically possible and Franjic agreed.

Troisi and Franjic battle for the ball in the traditional Christmas Derby

City sit fourth on 26 points with Troisi finding his shooting boots in the past month. 

“The belief is still there, there’s still 10 games to go. That’s 30 points up for grabs so there’s a long way left in the season,” Franjic said.

“We believe ourselves, even in Australia, six teams make finals so anything can happen there.

“Mathematically it’s still possible, we’re going for top spot until it’s over, then it’s over. While there’s still a chance of going for first, we’ll go for it.

“We respect all their players, Jimmy (Troisi) is a good player and we’ve seen that in the past but we can’t just worry about one player at Victory. We have to worry about the whole team.

“Our main focus has been on ourselves this week because, look over the last few weeks, we’ve been dominating games. Just not scoring… the chances are there.

“It’s just a matter of time before it starts turning and we do start punishing teams.”

Troisi conceded he was happy to be scoring goals, but felt he was already fulfilling his role as a playmaker.

The Socceroo scored his first goal in Geelong in a 4-2 win over Newcastle Jets in the beginning of January and has added three more since.

He felt he needed to get the first one out of the way to build momentum.

“That’s the way it happens, you get one and two and the rest start to come. I guess it’s a little bit more special when you’re scoring goals, for me it’s not like I was missing sitters,” Troisi said.

Troisi celebrates a goal in the Australia Day clash against the Sky Blues. Photo: Ashley Perez Photography

“I didn’t really have many opportunities and now the ball is falling at my feet and I’m putting it in the back of the net. I find my role here this time at Victory a little bit different.

“I’m creating a lot more chances for the likes of Bes and Marco and as a No.10 that’s what I have to do.

“If I can score, then that’s fantastic as well, but in saying that the most important thing, it doesn’t matter who’s scoring, it’s we’re picking up the points.”

Troisi felt focusing on thwarting Sydney’s run was not the way to go about the rest of the season.

Victory have now lost three games on the trot, but he was convinced they were playing good football.

“Like Ivan said, there’s 10 games to go… that’s a lot of points. But to be honest we’re not looking to catch Sydney,” he said.

“We’re looking at playing our football and picking up as many points as possible. Whatever position we sit in at the end of the day, we want to be as high as possible.

“The last two games we should have got points out of it, we’re playing some good football and we’re in a good way at the moment. So we’re looking to rectify the points we haven’t picked up.”