Carl Veart has lauded Adelaide United’s resilience after yet another comeback performance this season following more late drama.
This time it was Melbourne City who was the Reds’ latest victim as the defending champions suffered a 2-1 loss after Mohamed Toure’s 85th minute winner.
Adelaide has rescued points from losing situations in seven games this campaign and have scored eight goals on or after 84 minutes.
“It’s something the boys have done all season,” Veart said in the post-match press conference.
“They never give up and their spirit is fantastic and you saw again tonight they kept fighting.
“The first-half we weren’t at our best. We improved in the second-half with our ball movement, but the boys have shown all season that they fight right until the end.
“I’m so pleased for Mo (Mohamed Toure) to get his first goal for the season, he’s put a little bit of pressure on himself because he hasn’t been scoring goals and to get that goal tonight, the winner, I’m very happy for him.”
Veart altered his tactics at half-time substituting in Zach Clough for Juande and leaving Louis D’Arrigo as the lone defensive midfielder.
The move coincided with Adelaide’s improved second-half performance.
“We just needed to play the ball through our six (defensive midfielder),” he said.
“The first-half we never got the ball into Juande and I know Louis went in there in the second-half and we needed to play the ball through him more which then allowed us to get the ball to our 10 (attacking midfielder) and in between the lines and we managed to do that a lot more in the second-half. Which then makes them have to shift a bit more.”
Despite playing more than 50 senior games for the Club, Veart admitted people keep forgetting D’Arrigo is only 20 and still learning his trade.
He felt the young midfielder will only continue to get better and was impressive after half-time.
“Louis second-half was much better,” he added.
“He’s still a young player, we keep forgetting how young Louis is. He’s still learning his craft and he’s learning his craft off two fantastic players that play in that position in Isa (Isaías) and Juande.
“Tonight, most of last season we played with the one six, this year we played with two. But I just think with Melbourne City, because they press quite aggressively it’s better to have that extra player in front of their back four because if you get through the press you can cause them some trouble.”
The win moves Adelaide into third spot momentarily, but the Reds have so far navigated their three-game road trip admirably with four points from two matches.
Adelaide return home before flying out to Sydney on Friday ahead of a Saturday night clash with Macarthur FC.
Veart believed if they can achieve a promising result, it shapes the Club’s end to the season quite nicely.
“Start of this road trip that we’re on, three away games in one week is a tough trip against three quality sides,” he continued.
“We managed to get a point against Wellington on Saturday late and then to come here to the champions and get three points, it’s tremendous.
“We’ve set ourselves a target what we need to get to and once we get through these three away games, it can sort of set ourselves up because then after that we’ve got eight home games out of the 12.
“So we’re really looking forward to a big push in the second-half of this season.”
