Sydney FC captain Alex Brosque has claimed Western Sydney Wanderers' regular squad changes over the past few years have played a key role in the Red-and-Black's Sydney derby struggles.
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Wednesday marked three years since the Wanderers last tasted success in the derby and they head into Saturday night's edition winless in their past five A-League matches this term.
With Sydney flying at the top of the table - they are 22 points ahead of the seventh-placed Wanderers after 14 rounds - Brosque didn't shy away from declaring Western Sydney are "struggling".
The Sky Blues' skipper added that the regular turnover of players by Wanderers coach Tony Popovic has hurt Western Sydney in the derby.
In the first derby of 2016-17 in Round 1, Sydney crushed Western Sydney 4-0.
"We've got a lot of players that have played in these games before and, you know, they've had a lot of squad changes from year to year," Brosque said.
"So players come in and even though you get told about these games, unless you've played in it several times it's hard to really gauge what it's like."
Brosque scored the fourth goal in his team's emphatic opening round win at ANZ Stadium in what was the biggest victory in Sydney derby history.
Sydney, who are undefeated in the A-League this term, will be looking to stretch their unbeaten run against the Wanderers to nine matches when they host the derby at Allianz Stadium on Saturday night.