Adelaide United Head Coach Theo Tsiounis is looking for his side to turn promising passages into sustained performances as the Reds prepare to host Wellington Phoenix on Friday night.
Reflecting on the trip to Central Coast, Tsiounis highlighted encouraging signs while reinforcing his commitment to developing the squad’s young talent.
Ahead of Wellington’s visit, he discussed United’s approach, improving in the final third and the latest on Maeve Nicholas, Tessa Salvestrin and Emilia Makris.
On the positives from Gosford…
“The game against Central Coast, I thought, had some really positive moments. The opportunities where we brought to life our model, which is really exciting.
“However, the challenge for us moving forward is to make sure that these moments are evident for longer periods of time in the game, and that’s something that we’ll continue to work on moving forward.”
On staying committed to the process…
“From the very beginning, we discussed the direction that we wanted to go in. That’s the direction where we want to continue to improve every player.
“We want to do what’s right for the game, and we want to do what’s right for the women’s game.
“So that means that we focus on the technical aspect of the game, continue to develop those individual players, and we look to play in a certain way.
“Obviously, within that framework, there are little tweaks that we can make against various opposition. However, we’re not going to stray too far away from what we’re trying to do because we believe that by taking this road, we’re giving players every opportunity to be the best that they can be, and that’s the most important thing from our perspective.”
On the challenge posed by Wellington…
“It’s going to be a challenge for us. Wellington have a fantastic side on paper. They’ve strengthened the squad from last season. They’re a very mobile and physical side.
“So our challenge is going to be to come out and to continue to play the way that we’re looking to play, and obviously make improvements, in particular in our final third, in terms of making sure that our actions are high-quality actions, and we get numbers in around the area to give us every opportunity of creating and scoring.”
On Nicholas returning to selection contention…
“The squad, as I mentioned previously, is an exciting squad. It’s a very young squad, probably the youngest squad in the league.
“We’ve got a young Maeve that comes back into the picture and is up for selection this week, so it’s very exciting after she came back from her under-17s World Cup.”
On Salvestrin’s progress…
“Tessa has been doing really well. We’ve just been managing the time due to an injury concern that she picked up early on in the season.
“So we’re looking to give her more game time as she progresses.”
On Makris and the squad’s availability…
“Makris has been training really well, so she’s not very far away from being available once again for selection.
“The team’s looking pretty healthy, and we’re really excited about our next game, which will be a challenging game against Wellington.”
