ACL a boost for ailing league form: Arnold

His team has only secured one point from their past four A-League matches, but Sydney FC coach Graham Arnold is relishing the brutal schedule caused by the Asian Champions League (ACL).

A trip to Japan features in a five-match fortnight for the club but Arnold believes the ACL will spark, not hinder, a revival to his team's ailing domestic season.

"If players don't want to play in these types of game then they're at the wrong place," Arnold said.

"It's great, what footballers play for is to play games and we've got a lot of games coming up in the short period."

Arnold's chargers must also endure two trips to Melbourne, a heavyweight contest with Western Sydney and a home fixture against Chinese powerhouse Guangzhou Evergrande in the cluttered two-week period.

And despite the fact they are now at risk of dropping out of an A-League finals-paying position to a chasing Perth Glory, Arnold is confident the ACL campaign is just what the doctor ordered.

"The ACL is something refreshing, something real different," he said.

"To have the opportunity to go and play against top quality players, different oppositions, different tactics and different styles of teams refreshes you mentally and on the pitch."

Australian teams have historically experienced mixed results in the A-League throughout ACL group matches.

There are no better examples of that then Arnold's own Central Coast team in 2012-13, who suffered two of their five A-League losses for the season between ACL games, but rebounded to win the Australian final series between trips to China and Korea.

And now Arnold believes he can use that experience to help Sydney through this tricky period.

"The travel side of it is important, you have to get that right," he said.

"Day time flights on the way there so the players aren't losing a night's sleep.

"Obviously we've got no choice with only night time flights but, but we have to try and stay in our time zone so we're not chopping and changing with different time zones."

Arnold's message is rubbing off on his players as well, with captain Alex Brosque also defiant that the club must see the next tricky period as a positive.

"The top teams in Europe, they do it and do it well every single year," he said.

"We see ourselves as a big club so we have to be able to challenge on both fronts.

"We believe we're good enough to do that."