Adelaide United Head Coach, Carl Veart, is urging his side to finish the regular season on a high on Friday night.
The Reds will face Central Coast Mariners at Coopers Stadium in their last fixture before finals.
United have the opportunity to finish the campaign in second position, securing Asian football and a week off in the A-Leagues finals campaign – the latter of which Veart admits is an advantage if wanting to claim the Championship.
Reviewing last week:
“(It’s) the same as we’ve done all season, we look at what we’ve done well and the areas that we need to improve on.
“Some of the goals we gave away last week were just, sort of, switching off in critical times in the game.
“So it’s important that we have good focus with our defensive shape tomorrow.”
Facing Mariners:
“They’re a very good team.
“They work extremely hard and put you under a lot of pressure and really hurt you with those transition moments.
“They’re quite direct when they win the ball, so it’s important that we have good focus on when we have the ball and don’t leave ourselves open too much when for those transition moments.
“We just worry about ourselves.
“We’ve had some great results at home this year and it’s important that we get another good result tomorrow night.
“It’s in the boys’ hands and they’ve worked extremely hard to get to this point.
“It’s important that we finish the season off on a high note.”
Importance of securing second:
“It’s always positive to finish high up the table and the higher up, the more, I suppose, rest that you have going into the final.
“Last year we had to play three finals games in one week and that took a lot of sting out of us.
“So it’s (the rest) important this time of year when the players are starting to fatigue physically and mentally.
“The more rest they can get, the fresher that they are in finals games, the more chances you’ve got of having success.”
