The 20-year-old has made a slow start to his career with the Glory, impressing during pre-season but then being laid low by an injury which ruled him out of the opening two rounds of the Hyundai A-League campaign.

"It was minor osteitis pubis and if I'd kept going without stopping, it would have turned into full-blown osteitis pubis," Harold said.

"I sat down with the club's fitness and medical staff and worked out a plan that would best rehabilitate the injury and included a lot of fitness work at the same time so that I wouldn't be too far off the other guys when I came back.

"It's obviously frustrating as an athlete when you're injured because everyone wants to be playing every week, but being a new player at the club, it was good to show the gaffer what I could do in pre-season.

"The injury was unfortunate, but it was good that I did my rehab properly and took a bit of extra time so that I won't have any more problems with it, hopefully.

"And now I'm just trying to play well when I get my chance and trying to push myself into the starting team."

The former Gold Coast United man is again likely to be named among the substitutes when Glory tackle Sydney FC this Sunday and he is relishing the prospect of taking on Alessandro Del Piero.

"Everyone in the league is looking forward to playing against Del Piero," he said. "Everyone knows that he's a football great.

"Hopefully I'll be in the squad and I'll get my chance to go out and make an impact like I did at the weekend. That's the most important thing.

"You can talk about Del Piero all you like, but we are there to go and play our game and worry about us winning the game."

During Glory's highly successful pre-season trip to South Africa, Harold was regularly employed down the left flank in Ferguson's preferred 4-2-3-1 formation.

He believes that his versatility will stand him in good stead as he attempts to secure regular first-team football.

"I have played number nine most of my career, but we've got Billy (Mehmet), Smeltzy (Shane Smeltz) and Ndumba (Makeche) who are all really good centre forwards and I spotted that early.

"I played out wide a lot earlier in my career as well, so I'm still getting used to playing there again, but I feel that gives me an edge in regards to being selected.

"Especially now, coming off the bench, it gives the gaffer the chance to play around with the team if he needs to. The bottom line is, I just want to play."

Harold is set to be joined on the bench at ANZ Stadium by defender Bas van den Brink, who has recovered from a calf strain but is unlikely to make an immediate return to the starting line-up following replacement Steve Pantelidis' strong showing in last weekend's 2-0 victory over Melbourne Heart.