Adelaide United coach Carl Veart says his side remains full of belief heading into the inaugural Unite Round in Sydney, despite being winless in its last three games.
The Reds are coming off consecutive draws to Wellington and Macarthur at Coopers Stadium in the last week and will be coming up against a Sydney FC outfit on Saturday night that sits equal on points on the Isuzu UTE A-League ladder.
Last time the sides played, the Sky Blues were playing under coach Ufuk Talay for the first time after the sudden departure of previous manager Steve Corica, and Veart’s side put in its most disappointing showing of the season to go down 5-1 at home.
The Adelaide coach said his players will be hoping to make amends for that performance this weekend and have been playing well without getting results in recent weeks.
Speaking before the Reds flew to Sydney on Friday, Veart also discussed his thoughts on the Unite Round concept, the chance of a potential debutant and the future of winger Bernardo.
Carl Veart on what his side needs to improve to get back on the winners’ list:
“Scoring goals is one thing that we need to change but other than that, our performances have been quite good over the past three or four games, and that’s a good sign. We’re happy with our performances, it’s just a matter of scoring those goals.
“Goals win matches, and you need to score goals when you’re in control of matches. When you don’t, then you leave yourself a little bit open and that’s what we’ve done in the last couple of games. But the boys are confident, and they still have the belief, and they will go to Sydney full of confidence to go there and get the three points.”
Carl Veart on why his side has been creating a lot of chances but not scoring goals:
“It’s a little bit of decision making and (partly) execution, something that we spend quite a bit of time on with the attacking players on their finishing and in their decision making. Sometimes in games, you can go long times without ever going look like you’re going to score but we’ve had the opportunities, so we’ve just got to keep backing ourselves in and the goals will start flowing for us again.”
Carl Veart on the 5-1 loss to Sydney the last time the sides met in November:
“The players were very disappointed with that performance on that night, so they want to go there and put in a very good performance. But as I said, we’re going through a good patch of our performances, we just need to start scoring goals and start rewarding a good play with some more points.”
Carl Veart on potential debutant Austin Ayoubi:
“(He can play) anywhere across the front. He’s an attacking player that likes to get in the box, score lots of goals so you know, that’s why we brought him into the squad as an attacking player. He might get an opportunity tomorrow night, and hopefully he can score some goals.”
Carl Veart on what he is hoping to add to his squad during the January transfer window:
“Since the beginning of the season, we’ve been trying to find an attacker to come in someone that can play as a nine or play on the wing. That hasn’t changed, we’re still looking for someone to help take the load off of Hiroshi (Ibusuki) and Luka (Jovanović). Someone that can add goals to the squad.”
Carl Veart on Bernardo’s absence from the playing squad for Monday night’s game against Macarthur:
“Bernardo has made himself unavailable for the squad. So we’re just working through that at the moment. He just wants his future to go somewhere else. (It’s) something we’re working with, you know, he wanted to move earlier in the year and we wanted him to stay because he’s a required player. It’s got to a point now where we have to explore other options.
“It’s very frustrating. We’ve had a lot of belief in Bernardo, and football is a difficult game, and you have ups and downs. You have to keep pushing yourself to be your best and unfortunately, it hasn’t worked.”
Carl Veart on the inaugural Unite Round:
“It’s going to be interesting to see what the uptake is in Sydney so it’s a very good concept. It would be nice, I suppose, if we were playing in our red kit, as well. But I don’t know the reasoning by saying we’re home when we’re going to be playing in a white kit in an away stadium Other than that, it’s all good.”
