Carl Veart could not fault the effort from his players despite Adelaide United’s 1-0 defeat to Melbourne Victory at Coopers Stadium on Saturday night.
Missing seven outfield players, along with two senior goalkeepers, Veart was extremely proud in the manner the team acquitted themselves.
Adelaide largely dominated another entertaining instalment of the Original Rivalry, but could not overcome a resistant Victory defence.
“I couldn’t be any prouder of the players tonight,” Veart told reporters in the post-match press conference.
“I thought they were outstanding, the football we played tonight was excellent.
“We just couldn’t get a goal, we threw everything at it but we just couldn’t get a goal.
Bernardo, George Blackwood and Ryan Kitto also succumbed to Covid-19 on Friday, forcing a number of last-minute tactical alterations.
“We lost three players yesterday after training with Covid, so I take my hat off to the players that came in,” he added.
“We’d worked on certain things this week and then to have to change at short notice was difficult.”
Veart also discussed his reasoning behind opting to play Isaías at centre-back instead of Juande.
The boss praised the 35-year-old who was absolutely superb as an auxiliary central defender in his 200th game for the Club.
“Isa (Isaías), his passing range is a lot longer than Juande’s and we wanted to use Mo (Mohamed Toure) a lot more in behind tonight, and that lasted only 20 minutes,” he said.
“But I thought Isa tonight was outstanding. I don’t think anyone got past him and some of his passing and his decision making was outstanding.
“That’s the quality that you get with Isa and it’s unfortunate that we lost that quality in the middle of the park, having to put him back there.
“But unfortunately, at the moment we’ve only got one central defender fit in the Club. We’ve got four on the injured list but we have to make do.”
