Adrian Stenta will take charge of his first Westfield W-League home match on Saturday night as Adelaide United Women aim to bounce back from the opening round 4-3 loss suffered against Canberra United Women.
The Reds host Perth Glory Women at Marden Sports Complex looking to get their first win of the season.
Stenta on the Canberra defeat…
It was bitterly disappointing to be honest because we went in with a game plan and thought we executed quite well in the first-half and put ourselves in a position where we could win the game and take something out of it. So to come away with no points and conceding four goals in the second-half did leave a bit of a bitter taste in our mouths.
Stenta on the key learnings from the loss…
We probably just need to be a little bit stronger and proactive with our defensive action, probably higher up the park as well. We sort of sat off a little bit and put our back four under a lot of pressure. I thought going forward we showed some good signs and scored some good team and individual goals, but just a stronger defensive action overall. We can’t be conceding four goals in a half of football.
Stenta on signing Dutch defender Maruschka Waldus…
We were looking for another defensive player, she’s been playing in Europe, so she’s fit and ready to go and out of quarantine. She’s been playing in the Champions League in Europe as well, has had W-League experience before too, so she’s a real leader already on and off the pitch and we’re really impressed with the quality that we’ve seen from her at training on the pitch.
Stenta on facing Perth…
We play in a league with nine teams, so there’s no such things as easy weeks or hard weeks. Every week we go in expecting a really difficult match and this week against Perth is going to be no different. New coach a lot of new players that haven’t played so it’s a bit hard to know what to expect. A little bit like last week with Canberra, it was very difficult to plan for them. So what that means is that we just focus on ourselves and work on what we want to do in the game and leave what Perth will do to them and see what happens.
Stenta on things worked on in training this week…
A little bit of that defensive action that we spoke about. Still an increased focus on some of our attacking movements and finishing as well. And just trying to bring in some competitiveness into the group as well, it’s there but it’s a mindset and a mentality that we constantly want to work on.
Next match details:
Game date: Saturday, 9 January vs Perth Glory Women
Westfield W-League 2020/21 – Round 3
Kick-off 6.35pm ACDT
Gates open 5.35pm ACDT
Venue: Marden Sports Complex
Broadcast: Fox Sports
Stream: Kayo Sports, MyFootball Live App
