A-League Women: Perth Glory set to miss key players Susan Phonsongkham, Megan Wynne and Onyinyechi Zogg

Perth Glory’s A-League Women’s campaign has been dealt a blow with a trio of important players suffering injuries on the eve of the season.

But new coach Stephen Peters is nonetheless excited for the season ahead and has refused to let it cloud the side’s enthusiasm for their opening game of the fixture.

Exciting winger Susan Phonsongkham is set to miss a sizable chunk of the season, with Peters revealing an ankle injury suffered in the NPL Victoria grand final in September required surgery.

And high-level international signings Megan Wynne and Onyinyechi Zogg have also been sidelined, while incoming goalkeeper Casey Dumont is still contracted to AFLW side Hawthorn.

“Susan’s got an ankle injury that she’s unfortunately carried into the pre-season from the NPL grand final. She’ll be out for a period of time — we’re looking at three to four months,” Peters said,

“That’s a significant challenge for us, because she’s a player with great quality. It was a couple of bumpy weeks for her navigating through the decision on what to do and how to navigate through that.

“But she’s come through that pretty well, she’s been around the group and helping the group.”

Peters said Welsh international and ex-Tottenham winger Wynne had a wrist injury, while twice-capped Nigerian centre-back Zogg has a calf issue.

“Megan will be about three weeks. She’s got a wrist injury, which is just a little bit complex in terms of what needs to happen for her to get 100 per cent right and there’s a couple other niggles that she can rest up in that time,” Peters said.

“Onyi’s actually got a really strange one. She’s got a plantaris injury, which is a bit weird. It’s not really a structural thing, it’s just more of a pain management thing, so she’s working with the medical team, we’re looking to hopefully have her back sooner rather than later.

“The next person’s just got to step up and that’s got to be our mantra; as long as we’ve got 11 players on the field, we’re going to give an effort and put in a performance that everyone will hopefully be proud of.”

Despite the injury news, Peters upbeat about the upcoming season, which begins with a trip away to reigning premiers Melbourne City on Sunday.

It will be Peters’ first game as an A-Leagues coach and he said he was relishing taking on a City side who were one of the competition’s benchmarks.

While coach Dario Vidosic has moved onto English Women’s Super League side Brighton — who have won three of their opening five games under the Australian — Peters said City were still a formiddable opponent.

“We’ve had an opportunity to obviously look at them with their AFC (Club Championship) duties, so that’s a bonus for us, and they’re a good side,” he said.

“It’s going to give us a real good indication of where we’re at and I think it’s a great starting platform for us.

“They seem to have a philosophy in the club that’s carried through from manager to manager, to a certain degree, so there are some things that I think still remain from Dario’s reign, but Michael (Matricciani) seems like a very astute manager.”

The Glory were unable to face any other A-League Women sides in pre-season, but Peters said they were focused on the positive elements of their pre-season.

“The fact that we haven’t played an a league opponent in pre season is obviously a challenge, but we’re just constantly trying to look at the positives,” he said.

“We spent more time on the grass than probably most other teams in terms of our training sessions, we had two very decent games against the state side, and then we essentially had a couple of midweek hit-outs against some boys teams that we organised.”