The A-League’s newest side announced on Friday plans to shift their round 16 clash with Adelaide United from Kardinia Park in Geelong to the western suburb institution.

It will cap off a busy weekend for Melbourne, with the Australia Day clash preceded by Melbourne Victory’s hosting of Sydney FC on January 24 while Melbourne City welcoming Perth Glory to town on January 25.

“The technical negotiations really started and finished in the last week of December,” Matt O’Hanlon, General Manager of Projects and Strategy at Western United, said.

“We’re now heavily in the infrastructure and logistics stage of putting the game on, so it’s happened really quickly from our end.

“But everyone here is willing and happy to have it, so let’s just get it done as quick as we can basically.

“With the Whitten Stand, all of our seated fans will be in [the northwest corner of the oval]. The skew of the field will be down in this corner.

“There are obviously restrictions around where the broadcaster sets up and also the distance we need for safety reasons from the fence.

“So, it won’t be completely on the fence. But if you looked at it from a helicopter, the pitch will be skewed into this bottom corner here and as close to our fans as they can possibly put it.”

While the move to bring a game to Melbourne’s west isn’t too much of a surprise given the struggles that United have faced in developing a rowdy atmosphere at cavernous Kardinia Park, the choice of Whitten Oval may throw some observers.

The subject of United playing games at Knights Stadium has been a frequent discussion point among football fans, who point to the recent FFA Cup fixture between the Knights and, coincidentally, Adelaide as an example what can be achieved at the venue.

“We did look at a lot of different options in the inner-west,” O’Hanlon said. “The reality is the logistics are the main answer to that question, making sure that we meet the minimum FFA standards.

"The FFA and the broadcaster have been out and ticked out this stadium as appropriate to hold a game.

“Notwithstanding we have a lot of work to do get it to that stage. I guess they would have been more comfortable with an infrastructure like [Whitten Oval] than heading to another stadium that might not have the capacity that we anticipate we’re going to need.

“As far as I’m aware, we haven’t really progressed discussions with Knights to a stage where we could get a game up and going as quickly as this one but that’s not to say we wouldn’t engage them going forward.”

Ultimately, of course, United’s groundhopping is intended to be a temporary phenomenon.

The club was granted a licence to join the A-League in late 2018 largely off the back their plans to construct their own boutique football stadium in Tarneit – the first facility of its kind in the Australian top flight since Knights Stadium was constructed in Sunshine.

“It’s going really well,” O’Hanlon said when asked about the stadium. “We had some significant milestones late in the year last year, particularly with the council to get those plans basically rubberstamped.

“That’s an ongoing process, it’s not a quick process. Our plan is still to build and then open that in our third or fourth season down the track, so we haven’t quite got an exact deadline but were absolutely pushing to open that stadium as quickly as we can and everything’s on track at this stage.”

The United official was then prodded on if it was three seasons or four seasons.

“The aim is three,” he said. “I think we’ve got to allow some flexibility around that just because of the unknown with the build. So, we’re not necessarily putting a stake in the ground to say it’s definitely going to be open at a certain date.

“But the answer is as quick as possible we’ll get that open and get our fans into the stadium as fast as possible.”