Miron Bleiberg will travel with a 16-man squad, but will be without new signing John Curtis and several other first team regulars.

Jason Culina and Shane Smeltz are on international duty at the FIFA World Cup and minor knocks to Tahj Minniecon (shoulder), Jess Vanstrattan (arm), Andrew Barisic (shoulder) and James Brown (groin) will not be risked.

Drafted in as cover for the senior absentees are youngsters Ben Harrison, Steve Lustica, Golgol Mebrahtu and Ben Halloran, along with trialling young goalkeeper Luke Muir, who will take his place on the bench.

Striker Joel Porter returns however after missing out on the two-match visit to New Caledonia with an ankle injury and Scott Higgins will continue in goal as Vanstrattan's replacement.

Michael Thwaite will skipper the side in the absence of regular captain Jason Culina with promising NYL striker Golgol Mebrahtu set to partner Porter up front.

Little is at stake for either side in the friendly fixture, but despite being forced to field a weakened side, Miron Bleiberg remained focused on continuing the winning habit.

"We will field the strongest team we can and it gives a number of our younger players the chance to show what they can do against Hyundai A-League opposition," said the Gold Coast Head Coach.

"At this stage of pre-season we will not take any chances with any of our players, so those who are not deemed to be completely 100% fit and ready for 90 minutes of football will not travel.

"We're missing a few big names but our approach will still be to try and win the match. This will be our third competitive game of this pre-season and although it's a little early to be playing a Hyundai A-League club, it will give us a decent indication of where we are in our preparation.

"It's also a chance for us to try a few different things tactically and experiment with players in different positions and situations, so we're looking forward to it and I'm sure we will come back with many positives."

The final whistle on Saturday night will signal a week-long break for the United squad who have now completed phase one of their tough pre-season regime.

Strength and Conditioning Coach, Adrian Cois, explained the reasoning behind dividing United's training schedule into two blocks.

"We've broken our pre-season into two halves. The first half is what you might term a traditional Australian pre-season and the second half is a traditional European pre-season," said Cois.

"The initial six weeks is all about getting the guys fit and healthy, then they have a break or reduced training load for a week or so in order to recover.

"With the intensity of training it's important that they reboot both mentally and physically because that first six weeks of training is tough and draining.

"The final six weeks is when we push hard and really work on honing them up and making sure they're really sharp for the start of the competition. So far we're really pleased with how everything has gone," he declared.