Brosque, 32, suffered complications with his hamstring earlier in the season, initially leading to him missing two matches before a misdiagnosis meant he repeated the injury – which turned out to be a ruptured hamstring tendon – during his comeback match on Boxing Day, where he scored twice before going off inside half an hour.

The club's medical staff have taken extra precautions to ensure their best player returns at full fitness, taking no chances with his health despite the squad badly missing his presence. Now it's up to coach Graham Arnold about whether he starts him this weekend.

"I'm definitely ready now. I've been as careful as I could possible be this time around because the last thing I want is another injury, which has meant spending an extra week or two on the sidelines," Brosque told Fairfax Media.

"I'm at an age where I have to be aware of my body, what it's capable of, what stress I can put it under and when it's ready to be tested. I've been back in full training for a few weeks now and have cleared every hurdle, which is a big relief.

"I'll definitely be putting up my hand to start and then from there, it's Arnie's call. But if he feels that I could have more of an impact off the bench, easing my way in, I'm happy to do that as well."

Brosque said it was incredibly difficult watching on from the sidelines as his team slipped in the title race. They are currently fifth, having taken just one point from their past three matches.

"It was incredibly frustrating because you know if you're out there, you always believe you can make a difference," he said. "It's been a difficult run for the boys because we haven't been playing at our best. We've lost a little bit of ground that we need to make up before the gap gets any bigger. We're definitely capable of staying in the title race but to do that we need to start getting those wins again. There's too much competition in the top six not to be getting three points regularly."

Having mostly played as either a left-winger or number 10 during since re-joining the club for his second stint, Brosque is aware that the current line-up means his best chance of having an impact is as a number nine.

"That would seem the place where I can fit in and where we probably need a little help right now," he said. "Milos Ninkovic seems to be improving with every game as our number 10 and on the left we've got Andrew Hoole and Chris Naumoff and now David Carney who are all capable there. So it would probably make sense that I can come in an play as a nine, which is where I've played a lot during my career. I've also played there a bit this year so I think it would make sense."

The Sky Blues have struggled for goals in Brosque's absence and have just 24 goals from 18 games, the lowest of the top seven clubs in the A-League this season. But Brosque doesn't think the attack should be written off just yet.

"We've obviously been criticised a bit for the way we play, with some people saying that we're too defensive, but I think we'll always be able to come up with goals when we need them," he said. "Hopefully I can help with that but Matt Simon showed what he can do last weekend and Shane Smeltz is very much a quality player. I've got no doubt we can piece it all together before the finals."

Watching from the sidelines, Brosque said he felt the reason why the team had dropped points was not due to a major structural issue but more lapses in concentration.

"We're doing a lot of things right but what I noticed is that we've begun making making some small mistakes that probably weren't there earlier in the season," he said.

"When we were keeping all those clean sheets and picking up results, the concentration of everyone was as high as you could hope for. If anything, it's better to learn that lesson now so that we can re-focus, eliminate those errors and get ourselves ready for the run to the finals."