Craig Deans hopes Canberra's cash splurge in attack leaves their defence exposed as the Newcastle Jets chase victory at McDonald Jones Stadium on Saturday.
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The Jets coach is targeting maximum points in their next two outings and is confident his side will respond from a poor performance in last round's 1-0 loss to Western Sydney. It came after opening the 12-game season by drawing 1-1 with Melbourne City.
"We've got Canberra this week and Perth next and we think if we play to our best we can win both games and if we can do that it puts us in a reasonably good position," Deans said.
"We have a tough game against Sydney after that, so if we can get some momentum going into the Sydney game that would be nice.
"To win this weekend obviously puts us on four points. It will put us above Canberra and just keeps us closer to being in the top four ... The quicker you can get your first win of the season it takes a little bit of pressure off."
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Canberra opened their campaign with a 2-0 win over Perth then lost 2-1 to City in injury time last round.
The goals in their first two outings have come through United States imports Katie Stengel, who played the past two seasons in Newcastle, and Simone Charley.
Stengel has been ruled out of the game with an ankle injury but United have plenty of other attacking threats.
"They've spent all of their money in the front third," Deans said.
"They've got Katie and they have Camila Pereira, the Brazilian player, Elise Thorsnes, the Norwegian, and another American girl in Simone Charley, who's been scoring goals for them and looks like a good player.
"We just need to stop them getting opportunities to score and the fact they've spent all the money in the front third maybe means they've got some weaknesses that we can exploit at the back, so that's what our focus will be."
Newcastle's other focus will be passing accuracy and being ruthless in front of goal.
"We turned the ball over so many times against Western Sydney and we caused ourselves a lot of problems because of that," Deans said.
"So this week's been about us being better with the ball and making some better decisions and not rushing things so much ... being good with the ball requires a little bit of patience sometimes."
Deans has named an unchanged squad with Annabel Martin, Renee Pountney and Sophie Nenadovic still sidelined through injury.
Striker Tara Andrews did not train on Thursday with back stiffness but got through yesterday's session and is expected to start.
The game is at 4.30pm.
