The Adelaide United Youth Team will host Adelaide City in Round 18 of the 2016 National Premier League at the Elite Systems Football Centre on Saturday afternoon.
After a heartbreaking defeat at the hands of West Adelaide last weekend, the Young Reds will be out for revenge as they face arguably their toughest test of the year playing league leaders Adelaide City.
Adelaide City lead the competition by four points ahead of second placed MetroStars, while the Baby Reds are five points off seventh placed West Adelaide.
Adelaide United Youth Team Head Coach, Mark Jones, was more than pleased with his team’s performance last weekend, however understands that his side will need to compete for the full 90 minutes if they are a chance of beating Adelaide City on Saturday.
“We always go into each match with a positive frame of mind knowing that we can compete with the best teams in the league,” Jones said.
“But I believe it’s about whether or not we can concentrate for 90 minutes and be disciplined enough to restrict the oppositions chances and hold our ground for the whole game.
“So we definitely need to be at our best to compete with Adelaide City whose game sense has been fantastic as well as their ability to run out the full 90 and win games”.
Amongst last weekend’s defeat, the Young Reds form has been overshadowed by many personnel changes however, Jones believes that the team cohesion is building each week and knows how important team chemistry is to winning football games.
“It’s been a bit of a challenge with the different personnel changes, but that’s part of the game I think we have a lot of fantastic young players who are able to step in and do a job for us,” Jones said.
“In the last few weeks in particular we have played some really good football and unfortunately last weekend West Adelaide just beat us in the end,
“So overall, we cannot control personnel and team changes but what we can control is that there are no lapses in concentration which have been costly as of late,
“So going into this weekend we need to be at our best for the whole match, and if we do that it will go a long way in claiming a result against Adelaide City.
