Adelaide United’s 1-1 draw against Melbourne City at AAMI Park on Saturday night was a fair result, according to Marco Kurz.
The Reds took the lead through Craig Goodwin’s clinical header off a sensational cross from Nikola Mileusnić before Jamie Maclaren capitalised on a mistake as Adelaide tried to play out from the back in the second stanza.
He admitted that while conceding in the manner in which they did to surrender their advantage was frustrating, City dominated the majority of the second-half.
“I think if you concede a goal in this way you’d be a little bit disappointed,” Kurz said speaking to the media in the post-match press conference.
“But in the end, I think in the second-half we played not so well and not good enough for the victory.
“That’s my opinion. I think we started well and played well for first 30 minutes and then we lost a little bit of the control of the game but we scored a goal.
“At half-time we said we must look forward and play the ball to our offensive players, but it was completely different, we played more back.
“But in the end a draw is a fair result.”
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The result, however, maintains Adelaide’s fourth-placed position on the table – two points clear of Melbourne City.
Kurz said trying to secure a top-four finish is all the motivation his players need with nine games left in the regular season.
“We will fight to hold this position,” he stated.
“It’ll be hard but that’s enough to hold the hunger for success in our performance.
“It’s a good situation and if we look back last season, I think we had more problems.
“At the moment the boys have picked up good points, but if we reach the Finals and maybe we hold fourth place that means we’ll have a home game.
“And for us that’s an amazing result but we’ll have to work a lot to reach this goal.”
Kurz was also asked to give his thoughts on new Dutch recruit, Jordy Thomassen’s performance on debut.
The striker played the full 90 minutes and was involved in the build-up to Goodwin’s goal, spreading the ball out wide to Mileusnić.
“I think it was not easy for him,” he admitted.
“That was the first move for him to another club (outside of the Netherlands) and then he decided to move to Australia and he trained four times with the team.
“At this point the performance was okay, I think he has enough space to improve again and to adapt but he’s a good person.
“And I hope he can give us a lot of quality in the future.”
Adelaide United host Western Sydney Wanderers in Round 19 of the Hyundai A-League 2018/19 season on Saturday, 16 February at Coopers Stadium. Kick-off is at 7.20pm ACDT. Gates open 6.20pm.