Flores geared up for Adelaide return

Melbourne Victory star Marcos Flores is anticipating a heated reception from Adelaide United fans in his first appearance against his old side.

The Argentine attacking midfielder claimed the Johnny Warren Medal playing in an Adelaide shirt in the 2010-11 A-League season, scoring nine goals in the process.

Flores, 27, says he has a lot of respect for his former club and for however the fans react to him on Friday night at Hindmarsh Stadium.

“I’m expecting the people to express freedom, they can express what they want,” Flores said on Wednesday.

“I am sleeping very peacefully every day in my bed, every night, because I gave them (Adelaide) everything … 110 percent I gave to them.

“I am peaceful myself, my heart is with a lot of peace, but they can express what they want and I’m happy to receive.”

Ange Postecoglou’s Victory have turned their season on its head in recent times, winning five of their past seven since a 5-0 drubbing at the hands of champions Brisbane Roar.

Despite playing for the club with the biggest fan base in the A-League, Flores said he does not feel any additional pressure to churn out positive results.

“It’s beautiful, pressure,” he said.

“If that (winning for the fans) is how we call pressure, I want to have that pressure all my life. Pressure is living in Argentina, and (you) don’t have good salary to feed your family – that is pressure.

“But I live a good life, and I am doing what I love and every team-mate is doing what we love, and we are in one important club, and we want to do our best.”

That heavy loss to the Roar was winger/attacker Andrew Nabbout’s debut, but if such a baptism of fire was meant to scare the teenager off professional football, it backfired heavily.

Since then, Nabbout scored a memorable match-winning brace to help Victory see off bitter rivals Sydney FC 3-2 away, before also being on target in the club’s 2-2 draw with the Central Coast Mariners.

But Nabbout said he knows he has a lot of hard work ahead of him to build his fitness to run out a full 90 minutes – something he is yet to do in the A-League.

“I’ve just got to slowly catch up to the guys as quickly as I can. I hope in the next few games to get these fitness levels up because I want to be at the levels of the other boys to keep up during the game,” Nabbout said.

“In the last game, I found myself puffing in the first 20 minutes, so that can’t happen throughout the season. I’ve just got to keep working hard, and listen to the coaches, and I’ll get there very soon.”