The Queenslanders face Central Coast Mariners at Bluetongue Stadium in Saturday night's preliminary final clash for a spot in the decider against Brisbane Roar.

The Mariners defeated Gold Coast 3-1 the last time these two sides met and finished 11 points ahead of United on the A-League table at the end of the regular season.

But Bleiberg told reporters on Friday his side shouldn't be written off.

"I looked at one of the Sydney papers today, there's not even one soul that predicts Gold Coast is going to win ... only the octopus predicts that we will win," Bleiberg said.

"But I don't care because the same people that don't think we'll win are the same people that predicted Brisbane Roar would finish in the bottom two and predicted that we will finish nine or eight.

"There are a lot of experts around. Maybe Arnie (Mariners coach Graham Arnold) is a very nice guy because he's got a lot of friends and everybody's backing him up.

"It doesn't worry us, we're going to do our job and whatever happens, happens."

Bleiberg added: “The facts are that we know about the Mariners and they know about us. They have certain advantages they can bring to the game – the fact that they finished second on the ladder, that they beat us the last time we played them and of course the fact that they are playing at home.

“However, we have a few things in our favour. We come into the games after two wins and they have a loss and a draw, so we have very good momentum, even though their result at Suncorp Stadium could be seen as a psychological win.

“We also have an element of surprise because we believe we know how they are going to play and they don’t know how we intend to approach the game.

“We played 4-4-2 against Melbourne Victory and 4-3-3 against Adelaide, so we will keep them guessing.

“Thirdly, I think the suspension of Pedj Bojic is a real blow for Central Coast because in my book he’s a top Hyundai A-League player. He’s strong, he’s fit and he’s a good footballer.

“No matter what happens I hope the game is won by the better team and not influenced by a refereeing decision or a mistake, or something controversial.

“Win or lose I want to be able to congratulate the referee on his performance and hope he allows both teams to express themselves in what is a very important match for both clubs.”