Buoyed after their 4-1 thumping of Brisbane Roar at Suncorp Stadium last Wednesday, Popovic confidently took his side to Western Australia for Saturday night's clash with Perth Glory, where they they took an early lead but were ultimately beaten 3-2.

Josh Risdon's late winner halted any momentum the Wanderers might have gained from scrambling a draw out west and Popovic was crestfallen as he contemplated the challenge of managing a squad missing several of its biggest names.

Shannon Cole, Brendan Hamill, Mateo Poljak, Brendon Santalab, Matthew Spiranovic, Mark Bridge, Nick Ward and Golgol Mebrahtu are all out injured while Tomi Juric and Jaushua Sotirio have missed the past week because of international duty. Only a few may be available for next Friday's clash with Melbourne City at Parramatta.

"We'll do it the best we can but at the moment we don't have any choice. We have one or two young boys, 17-year-olds, sitting at home who are fit. Apart from that, no one is fit. The group that's here is the group that's available," Popovic said.

"Hopefully, we'll get a few more bodies back in the next week or so. That will certainly help us and we want to finish the season strongly. We want to keep playing the way we are and trying to get some more reward for the good play. We really came [to Perth] with a purpose to win. I thought we showed that in the way we played and the manner of our performance but unfortunately we go home with nothing."

While Popovic blames the club's excessive workload for so many of his players breaking down, he maintains he wouldn't trade the past year for anything.

"Everyone gets injuries – it happens. We know why they've come and we've got to take responsibility in certain things that we can do better. A lot of it was taken out of our hands," he said. "We missed 50-odd days of training through this pre-season and after the Morocco trip we started playing three games a week, hence the players didn't get a chance to get the conditioning that you get from October until the end of February when the Asian Champions League starts.

"But next year, I wish the problem again. I wish we had three games per week all season again and to see if we could deal with it better. Unfortunately, we won't be in the ACL next year so we'll try and make the most of it this time and next year, so we'll try to make the most of it this time."

Popovic should have access to Juric and Sotirio if they come home unscathed from Europe and Asia respectively, with Bridge some chance to be involved.

"[Bridge] is coming back from a pelvic groin complaint. He's done some running this week on his own, so if he can join in this week, he may be an option for games coming up," Popovic said. "I'm not sure [who else can come back]. We hope there's some but none of them have done any training, so we'll see with the group next week if a few players can join in training. There might be some available for Friday or next Tuesday ACL game [against FC Seoul]."

Popovic lamented the number of squandered opportunities against Perth, saying that he felt the points were within his team's grasp had they been sharper around goal.

"We created some great opportunities and at 1-1, we pretty much got two one-on-ones with the keeper. On Wednesday night they went in and we scored those," he said. "You can see we're creating chance after chance and every time we're in the front third we look dangerous. But we got punished.

"The overall result is tough to take, but I thought we played very well away from home again, as we did on Wednesday night. The difference was we got punished for set plays and they scored a wonderful goal at the end. We had some young boys out there. We knew [Perth] would be a threat at set plays and we didn't deal with that very well."