Saturday’s derby at Marvel Stadium looks to be a blockbuster clash with both teams believing they have strong squads this season.

Victory lead the all-time derby tally with 12 wins in their 26 encounters and will be looking to protect their A-League crown from last season.

Thomas said they needed to start the game with a high intensity over the Citizens.

“The last few years they’ve had the better of us in these early games,” Thomas said.

“A lot of that has come down to the early pressure and their early intensity and we fell behind, and we just couldn’t get back into the game.

“That’s probably the biggest one this year because in all those big games you always need to earn that respect to play early on and you need to fight hard.

“I assume it’s going to be quite fiery, quite intense early on and you then earn your rights to play after that.”

Thomas is also confident they’ll be the team to beat this season with the foreigners they have brought in.

World Cup players Keisuke Honda and Ola Toivonen has Victory fans drooling while Raul Baena and Georg Niedermeier add experience from La Liga and the Bundesliga.

While coach Kevin Muscat denied there was extra pressure with Honda’s arrival, the Big V gloveman was happy with the squad collectively.

“The names speak for themselves in regards to their quality,” he said.

“Just really looking forward to seeing on Saturday night under big lights and in front of a good 40,000 people. I’m sure we’ll be positive and very aggressive and very strong.

“Obviously me, big Georg in the middle, Kesiuke, Raul in there, Jimmy up top and the Big Swede as well so I think the spine is quite strong again.”