Taking charge at AAMI Park on January 15 after the club sacked Marco Kurz, the Spaniard had barely 48 hours to prepare his new chargers before they headed to South Australia to reignite the ‘Original Rivalry’ with Adelaide United.

Suffering a 1-0 loss to that fixture, a resounding thumping of Bali United in Asian Champions League action came mid-week although that, in turn, was followed with a comprehensive 3-0 defeat at the hands of Sydney FC in the Big Blue on last Friday.

But in what has the potential to become a defining moment in Victory’s 2019/20 season, a trip to Japan to face 2018 Champions Kashima Antlers in an ACL play-off mid-week didn’t produce the expected shellacking but, instead, a dogged and determined 1-0 win.

Landing back in Australia on Thursday beleaguered but victorious, they are now set to fly across the Nullarbor and face Perth Glory on Saturday – their fifth game in 15 days.

“We arrived 24 hours ago and now we are travelling in an hour to Perth,” Salvachúa said on Friday.

“We will try to recover today, as well during all the day [yesterday] and tomorrow morning, just to prepare for another tough, big game in Perth.

“We know we are in a tough month now and next month will be the same, with a lot of games and few training sessions.

“We know how important the training is to recover the bodies and during the clear weeks, with one game, we have to train with a different approach than we are doing now in these [busy] weeks.

“We are changing some things, but we have not had time to change a lot of things in the first week. We know the situation, but every time we are trying to improve, trying to grow in strength every day with a new step to build up what we want to do.

“I prefer to train more, I always say that I prefer more sessions on the pitch, but now we have to play a lot of games."